Things that Television Taught Me Tonight

Today/tonight I've been watching television. It's not because I want to. It's because I'm sacrificing my time in order to learn things from television and pass them on to you. No, no, you don't have to thank me. I do it because I care. Here are some lessons that television has taught me tonight, in no particular order:

Arizona is beating BYU, but not the good Arizona school (ASU - GO SUN DEVILS!) The bad Arizona school...the school that thinks it's all awesome, but really we all know the truth.

Lard comes from around the kidney region of the pig.

Bobby Flay does contemporary Southwestern cuisine. Oddly, this is a fact that I've learned on two separate occasions tonight.

It's really crappy weather today. It will be even crappier tomorrow. Apparently some nice 20 to 30 MPH wind is currently occurring which is working to bring the temperature down to -30 with the windchill. Tomorrow the high will be 2 and the low will be -8. It will be 5 on Monday. It's 1 now.

Paula Deen is super crazy, but she seems really happy, so it's hard for me to begrudge her the craziness.

Alton Brown is sort of a pompous ass. I think that's an image he cultivates, so he probably doesn't care if I am saying it about him, but c'mon Alton, lighten up. Oh, and according to Alton most Americans mistakenly think that all of the heat in peppers come from the seeds, but in fact quite a bit is contained in the white membrane that holds the seeds to the pepper flesh. I'm not sure if he took a poll of most Americans or where he gets his information, but you know what Alton? I knew that. So ha!

Will Ferrel is taking over the air waves. I can't blame the networks because he is funny. I used to think that I hated Will Ferrel but then I realized that I own almost all of the movies he's been in and I had to finally admit to myself that, yeah, I do like Will Ferrel.

Ashton Kutcher loves taking pictures.

Saturday night is not the best night for television.

The women on the Rock of Love Charm School are hard core. I would not like to meet any of them on a dark street at night. I'm not sure what happens to people when they get on reality television. Do they feed those people a steady diet of drugs, alcohol and crazy pills? I would never go on reality television because they wouldn't have to cut the footage all that much to make me look like "the bitchy one" and I just don't want that on record for everyone to see. How do people go back to their normal lives after being on reality television? Why can't I turn off these shows??

There's some new natural sweetener that comes from the Stevia plant and doesn't have any calories and is all natural. Why has it taken us this long to find this natural, no calorie sweetener? What else are scientists and botanists working on? Some cure for cancer? Fine, I guess, but no calorie sweetener that won't give you cancer? Seems like something we should have been working harder on.

Never, never, never under any circumstances should you become a drug mule for a man that you barely know and just met in Thailand. I'd think that this would be obvious to anyone, but apparently it bears repeating because I just watched an entire hour long program in which this lesson had to be learned the hard way. Also, I'm 99.9% sure that you shouldn't be a drug mule ever. Just don't do it. Because I also learned where you put the drugs and trust me, it's not pretty.

I didn't like the movie Swordfish the first time and it turns out that hasn't changed. I will tell you this though, just like in the movie, our family's secret password, you know, in case a stranger ever came to pick you up and you had to ask them for the password that your parents told them and they had to tell you the right one? Ok, so our family's password was Swordfish. Um...ok, that's probably not safe. Listen, Andy if you are reading this, don't get in the car with any strangers who tell you that password. I'll ask Mom and Dad to come up with a different one and tell us. OK?

The Big Ten Network wins hands down for "Most Boringest Station on Television" and "Least Likely to Be Watched by Me".

I cannot tell a lie, I want a GT Express 101 Indoor Grill. I'm sorry. The infomercial convinced me. It's got a unique dual cooking chamber. How can anyone resist?

I haven't watched Saturday Night Live in over 10 years and I don't regret that decision one little bit.

I find it amazing that there are a ton of shows of which I have seen maybe 2 episodes, but every time I flip through, I somehow have seen that episode of the show? What are the odds?

Ok, I'm gonna go continue my education now. Hopefully these lessons will serve you well.

Christmas with the In-Laws

I make this announcement in case I have not told anyone who happens to read this blog - I will not be going to Phoenix, home of my family, for Christmas this year. It's the first time in 28 years (or 29 years...Zach, I need your help on this one, how many Christmases have I lived? I get so confused about it because there is the zero year...I digress). Anyway, it's been a way long time since I have not spent the holiday with my family...although last year when I was stuck in Crapsville (sorry, Iowa) I wasn't really spending the time with my family either. But this year I will be spending the holiday with my brand-spanking-new-in-laws in Pennsylvania...another place where it snows and is freezing during the winter instead of warm(ish), sunny Arizona. I kid, I kid, I'm not complaining. I'm really not, I think it will be fun to go there. I know that Zach is looking forward to going home more than anything. I am happy to be going and I know that it is likely to become some sort of tradition as I hear that's what married people have to do. They travel for the holidays to both of their family homes. I'm interested to see how that will go. Actually, we aren't going for Christmas, we're going from Dec 27 - Jan 4, so that should be exciting.

The only real thing is that is sadder than missing Jesus' birthday with my family and friends is that I'll be missing MY birthday. I suppose it will all be fine in the end, I'll have a quiet night of single serving cake (read: a whole cake), and I'll sing myself Happy Birthday. No, no, don't pity me. It's fine. I've always wanted to spend the birthday before I'm 30 all by myself. And Zach will be home around midnight or something, so that will be fine. Just go on with your lives. It's all good.

Ok, I'm off now. I just wanted everyone to know that I am not dead. I'm fine. I feel a little bit sick right now, but I think it's just because we went out last night and I almost overindulged and I think I have some sort of snippet of a potential cold, but I also think that I have such an awesome immune system that I'm keeping it at bay. Zach and I would probably have super beautiful babies because we both have really good immune systems.

Also, just so you know, I got my hair cut last week and it is super cute. SUPER CUTE. Not everyone can say that without sounding conceited, but I can, because it's true.

I'm Officially a Shut-In

I've been in bed for the past 24 hours and not in the fun John and Yoko way. In the, "I feel dizzy when I move too much and I think I might die soon way." Well, I always think I might die soon, so that's not really a news flash, but I don't feel this dizzy and unsettled and achy all the time. I just got up and took a shower. The effort has proven to be too much for me, so now I'm back in bed. So far today I have read a book (mystery, of course), played some DS (yep, I went fishing) and listened a bit to my book on tape. Zach, my constant companion has been playing Twisted Metal 4 all day...and waiting on me hand and foot. I cannot tell a lie- having someone to do my bidding while I lay in bed all day is sort of like a dream come true. If only I didn't feel so crappy. Perhaps when I am better I will fake illness so that I can be waited on again. Yes, I think I will definitely do that. Don't tell Zach.

Here are some highlights from the day. We were making breakfast downstairs and Zach started talking about what we should have in our cabin. A quick aside, I decided recently that my new dream in life is to live in a really nice log cabin. Zach is totally on board for that, so we dream about it when we can.

Anyway, he said "We should have a big white board in the kitchen so we can write recipes and things we need from the store and that sort of stuff. And we can do drawings on it. But it can only be used for good, not easel."

I find that to be hilarious. Good, not easel. I love it. That's why I know this whole marriage thing is going to last.

And then later he came upstairs and he had some bacon on his plate (bacon and waffles is the breakfast of champions) and he said, "Do you want some bacon? Oh, wait, is that cannibalism for you?"

See what he did there? He called me a pig. It sounds mean when I write it now, but it was super funny. I find it very amusing. I've been playing it back and laughing all day.

Just thought I'd share. My right eye is twitchy and I feel like laying back down again (instead of being propped up with pillows on the computer...I can't leave this bed apparently). So I'll sign off now.

Turns out Lurch was Right

Back in my youth, well, I'll be charitable to myself...Back in the younger days of my youth we used to hang around with a group of kids from the neighborhood. We were all 17, 18 or in one extreme case 20 at the time and as I could newly drive, my gal pal and I would drive over and watch some of the guys play basketball and generally be show-off guys. A good time was had by all. Ah, the innocence of youth.

Anyway, there was one guy in the neighborhood who was introduced to us as "Lurch". Because of his resemblance to the Addams Family character of the same name. I didn't learn his real name until a few months in. The nickname didn't seem to bother him and it's just what everyone called him. This nickname was not ironic. He was a big, tall, somewhat hefty guy. And nice as he was. He was somewhat s-l-o-w. I'm not trying to be mean, but them's the facts. He was a slow guy. He didn't get animated about much either. So the name fit pretty well.

This is the story of Lurch.

One day I'm over at my friend's house (a boy...a boy I had a crush on) and Lurch comes over too. I am pretty sure that Lurch had a crush on me. Looking back, that's nice. It's always nice to know that people care. Anyway, Lurch comes over and he starts talking to me about this new video game that he got. Video games were the one subject that got Lurch animated. So he's talking away about how awesome it is because you get to kill all these people and it's really awesome, etc., etc. So after a bit of this story he sort of turns to me and says, "Yeah, it's a really cool game, but you probably wouldn't like it. It moves pretty fast. You probably would like something more slow, like fishing or something." To which I had no reply. And with that little gem, he awkwardly left. As soon as the door clicked shut I turned to my friend, "I'm sorry, I'm confused, did Lurch just call ME slow?" And he did. He called me slow, which was awesome.

I say all that to say this: Lurch, it turns out you were totally right. I do like fishing! I've been playing Animal Crossing: Wild World on the DS and you can fish in the game and damned if I don't spend most of time doing that. So Lurch, I apologize for taking offense at being called slow by you. You were right. Fishing rules!

Now It's Christmas Time

I know we just had Thanksgiving, but apparently, we've left Fall and are now in the grips of Winter's icy, deathly fingertips of doom, ice, snow, sleet, wetness, cold, horror, overeating and shame. Just me?

Yesterday Zach and I did ALL THINGS CHRISTMAS:

We mailed out the Christmas cards.
Bought a real live Christmas tree.
Decorated the house with tons of awesome Christmas stuff that my lovely Aunt Marybeth and my awesome Grandma gave us.
Listened to Christmas music.
Sat in the dark and admired all the pretty lights.
Hated the snow (oh, wait, that was just me).

Anyway, here's a photo essay of our endeavours. The pictures just really don't do it justice. I swear it's super beautiful and so nice in the house now. It's all decorated and it looks like an actual family lives there. It's official.

This is our Welcome sign. It hangs, very handily, on the peephole of our door. Fantastic and easy.


This is the Christmas tree. As you can see, we used a net to capture it in the wild. It was hard, but if you have two people, it's a lot easier. Zach stood on one side and I stood on the other and we held the net taught and then when the Christmas trees were running by, we jumped one and caught it.

Even though we caught our our tree by ourselves, the man at the Christmas tree ranch said we had to pay for it. This is Zach being excited by the price:


In case you didn't catch that he's happy because it's a $27.00 tree:
It's a Scotch Pine. I'm pretty sure there are some stereotypes about Scottish people and being cheap or what have you. I will let you put in your own joke here. Enjoy.

This is the most delicate part of the tree trimming - getting the skirt on the tree.

Now that the tree is dressed, it looks awesome:


More tree because it's super pretty, but hard to capture. Also notice how nice our plants look on their new table and plant stands. Going to my Aunt's house is like mining for gold. Or getting handed gold without all that pesky shifting and digging.


We tried to capture the feel of the lights, and by we, I mean, Zach:


This is a picture of our super cute holiday village in which I placed some snowmen. I like to think of the snowmen as the villagers, hanging out, buying some antiques, visiting the crazy sequined tree on the outskirts of town:


Here's a close-up version of the village with a snowman in the foreground. It's a pretty arty pic. That's how Zach is though. I don't even want to tell you how many different versions of the same picture I had to sort through.

One side of the tv/entertainment area:


The other side:


A shelf in the bookcase, which holds movies, not books, but I digress:


These pictures don't even really do it justice. Just trust me that our house is super beautiful. SUPER! I think that Zach finished the outside decorations today, so I'll get him to take one billion photos of that which I will then have to narrow down to a few so that I can post them here. I kid, I love that Zach takes pictures for me because I hate doing it by myself.

I leave you with this awesome artistic piece.

Happy Holiday Season!