I love these shoes!

Since I've been using them for a few weeks now, I can officially say that I love my new running shoes, the Adidas Clima Cool Oscillation. They don't have the color I bought on the Adidas site anymore, so here's a picture from Zappos:

Not only are these shoes really awesome looking, they are so comfortable! They weight hardly anything, are extremely flexible (I can practically roll them up), yet offer some support. They also have a mesh lining to keep your feet cool (hence the name.) I must have tried a dozen shoes before I decided on these. I originally thought I might jump on the Vibram bandwagon, but I hated the feeling of stuff between my toes. Plus, I have actually ran barefoot before (on a track, and even on the sidewalk!), and am planning on running barefoot again someday in my life, so it would have been a waste of my money. So these have been a great purchase. Now to continue to train for the 5k in Cleveland this May! It will be my first long distance race (I was a sprinter and hurdler in middle and high school so this is somewhat new to me). The longest I've ever ran is 4 miles, so I'm not too worried. I am very competitive though, so I'm hoping that pushes me to a fast first time. I can't wait until the snow goes away though, last night I just ran in place and did jumps under the covered parking in our parking lot because the snow was falling so hard!

Vinces School Update

Hey everyone.

I figure its been a while since I've posted anything on here and you all deserve an update.

As some of you may know, I finally returned to school fall of 11. That semester I only took one class, the 2nd object oriented programming class focusing on C# and C++. For the first time ever, the stuff actually made sense to me, so anyone who is considering taking CS classes from UVU, Dallas Harkin is the guy you want to take them from. Dude knows his stuff. I wound up with a 93 in the class.

This semester I'm taking 2 classes. I figure I'll only take a number of classes thats a power of 2. So that means 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc. in homage to the glorious binary number system. So 3 years from now, dont be surprised if im taking 16 classes. I'll have no hair left by then probably.

The classes I'm taking are CS2810, Computer organization and architecture, and COMM 2110, which is some retarded communication class. I'm sure you can guess which one I merely tolerate and which one I actually enjoy. Communications is online and is a joke.

CS2810 though, now that is a cool class. Assembly language. No silly classes to write, no pointers to keep track of (unless you count branching or whatever) just pure beautiful binary numbers.

So thats what im up to. I work a lot and school a lot and hang with my favorite person a lot. Ill see what I can do about keeping up with her on the number of posts on here, but until then,
62 65 20 67 6f 6f 64 20 61 6e 64 20 73 74 61 79 20 6f 75 74 20 6f 66 20 74 72 6f 75 62 6c 65

Ethnic Dinner 3: Indian

This weekend Vince and I made a trip to the library to research what we wanted to make for our Indian meal. We had originally planned on a main dish and a dessert, but after the dessert ingredients were going to be expensive we decided to nix it. So this week we just made one ethnic dish. After a little over an hour of searching, we found our winning recipe in a book called, "Indian Home Cooking". It is called Murgh Kaju, and it simply means cashew chicken. We did adapt it by leaving out the dried red chiles and the shredded coconut, but I think it would be divine with a little coconut milk. Also we couldn't find cumin seeds, so we just used the powder.

Murgh Kaju

(serves 4) from Indian Home Cooking p 121

1 cup raw or roasted cashews, plus 1/4 cup roasted cashews, for serving

4 whole dried red chiles

A 1-inch piece cinnamon stick

6 whole cloves

3 tablespoons coriander seeds

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped

8 garlic cloves

A 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut, or 1/4 cup ground raw or roasted cashews (we went with the cashews)

1/3 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut crosswise into thirds

2 cups water

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste.

Process 1 cup of the raw cashews to a powder in a food processor.

Combine the chiles, cinnamon stick, cloves, coriander, cumin, onion, garlic, ginger, coconut(or cashews), and 3/4 cup of the ground cashews in a large saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring until the cashews and coconut have turned light golden, about 10 minutes. Cool and process to a paste in a food processor.

Wipe out the saucepan and put it over medium heat. Add the oil, the spice paste, and the black pepper, and cook, stirring, until the mixture turns deep golden brown, about 10 minutes. Keep a cup of water beside the stove as the mixture cooks. As the spices begin to stick, add water, about 1 teaspoon at a time, and scrape the bottom of the pan with the spoon to pull up the browned bits and keep the spices from burning.

Add the remaining ground cashews and cook, stirring, 5 more minutes. Add the chicken and cook, stirring, until it turns opaque, about 5 minutes.

Add the water and the salt, bring to a boil, turn the heat down, and simmer, partially covered, until the chicken is tender, 15 to 10 minutes. Taste for salt and sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup cashews. Serve hot over rice.

Next time: Peruvian!

Personality Types

Last week in psychology someone gave a presentation on the Myers-Briggs personality types, which reminded me of how I used to love reading about all the types, taking as many different personality assessments as I could, and trying to decide what type people close to me were. Well I looked up my type and read it to Vince a few days ago, while we laughed at how accurate it was, then looked up his and did the same thing. I've been the same personality type for the over 10 years I've known about it, ESFJ (read about it here) and Vince is an INTP (read about it here), which makes us complete personality opposites, so I guess it's true that opposites attract! The test we took is from the book, "Please Understand Me" by David Keirsey, which is based on Myers-Briggs. You can take a test to determine your personality type here. (Not sure how accurate it is, but at least it's free!) Can't wait to hear what everyone is, and see if my predictions were right!

Delicious Blueberry Muffins

I have tried quite a few different blueberry muffin recipes over the course of my lifetime, but not many I can consider my favorite. Although it's a close tie to this recipe, my favorite blueberry muffin recipe actually comes from here. I don't know if it's the sour cream or what, but these taste SO good!

Blueberry Muffins

yields 24

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups sour cream

2 cups blueberries (I added a little more)

1. Preheat oven to 400 and line cupcake pan with liners.

2. In a large bowl beat eggs and add sugar, a little at a time while beating. Continue beating and slowly pour in oil while beating. Mix until well combined. Stir in vanilla extract.

3. In a separate bowl mix together flour, salt, and baking soda. Pour flour mixture into the egg mixture, alternating with the sour cream. Stir until well combined. Fold in blueberries.

4. Bake for 20 min and enjoy!

Fabric Alphabet

When I was looking for an alphabet set for our nephew, I could never find one for his young age that I liked. So I decided to make my own! I had seen an adorable set on Pinterest that I've wanted to make, but have no children to make it for. I thought it would go along great with an alphabet book. The original tutorial used magnets, but I didn't really want to make them magnets. Anyway here's how they turned out:

Creativity is messy...

Happy (late) Valentine's Day!

This year for Valentine's Day, Vince and I went out to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings. They opened a few weeks ago at their first location in Utah (Lehi/American Fork). I can't believe there hasn't been one here sooner because it was packed (now yes it was Valentine's Day, but I've driven by and saw it packed on other days). I like that they selected Lehi for the location because there weren't as many "zoobies" as I was afraid there would be, which was just lovely! There were a few NBA games on and a college game. We went as soon as Vince got off work, so we were there a bit early to see any of the Ohio State game, but I still wore my shirt (hey it was red!). They eventually put on the Jazz/Thunder game on most of the screens, which was our cue to leave (haha). Also, instead of us each getting a gift for the other, we bought a joined gift, new sheets for our bed! We got a set for our wedding, and discovered that they are the most soft and comfortable sheets I've ever felt, but it was time to get a new set. Although they are a bit expensive, they are completely worth the pretty penny we paid for them.

A few days ago I also made a few Valentine's Day decorations. I've been on a "mini clothespin kick" you could say. It's so easy to store this way, and i can use the clothespins for several different and temporay projects throughout the year. The heart banner turned out so cute! The first one is in the living room/hallway, and the second is in the office.

I also made a few valentines that I've been uploading to Scrapetite. Here's my favorite one, the one I made for Vince. I found that adorable keyboard paper and knew I had to make something for Vince with it.

This weekend I plan on making some cute Valentine cupcakes to share since it's not so good to eat an entire dozen cupcakes by yourself! Overall I say it was a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Ethnic Dinner 2: Italian

This week we decided on the country of Italy! We wanted to try to make something Italian that didn't involve pasta, and chose Pollo al Marsala (Chicken Marsala). This has always been my favorite thing to eat whenever I go to an Italian restaurant and was low-carb friendly for Vince's diet. We used the recipe from here. In addition we had a side salad and some blood orange soda. Mmm!

For dessert I originally wanted to make cannolis, until I saw that you need some sort of cannoli mold. Since we didn't have anything we could use for that, and we didn't want to buy anything, we decided on a fruit salad with cannoli cream that we saw on Giada's part of the Food Network website. This was not very low-carb friendly, but very very delicious! (Recipe from here.)

Next time: Indian!

Mason Jar Soap Dispenser

I can't believe I haven't made any of these before last week. They were SO easy to make! Found the idea on Pinterest (of course!). I made one for the kitchen and one for each bathroom. Also, they fit in with my love of all things farmhouse/country. I love them!

Super Bowl Yummies, school update and a new addition!

This past week has been a little busy. School is what is taking up most of my time, but I don't mind. Math is going well so far (we haven't done anything too terrible, although I still detest story problems). In English we are currently working on our second paper (out of only 5 papers for the whole semester). Our first paper was on problematizing a topic of our choice and I decided on bilingual classrooms. Still waiting to get the grade back, but I think I did well. It was a challenge to present a completely non-biased description of the problem, but I learned a lot. The second paper was problematizing an event in local or global news. For this paper I chose to write about a news story from back in November that took place outside of Cleveland about an obese child who was taken away from his parents because they believed that him being obese was a form of abuse. It's been interesting  to write about so far.

Stress management is the easiest class I've ever taken, which is very good for my stress level haha! Most of the assignments so far are journal entries and writing about personal goals. Psychology is still my favorite class by far. We finished watching a documentary last week called "Secret of the Wild Child" about a girl named Genie. Genie had been found in her home after nearly 10 years of living in isolation. Several psychologists and therapists were trying to determine if Genie could still learn and go on in life after missing out on important parts of language development as a young child. The ending was very sad, because Genie ended up being bounced from foster home to foster home and never was able to gain the needed language skills. We learned that the first few years of life are critical in learning to speak, and how important a good environment is for a child in all aspects. Today we went over the Susan Powell case and talked about how there were so many  signs that Josh Powell was a sociopath. It was quite interesting to reread the news stories with that idea in mind. 

Yesterday we had a small party for the Super Bowl, mostly as an excuse for Vince to make a bunch of chicken wings and for me to make some other delicious goodies. First I made some homemade ranch dip. I cannot believe how easy it was, and am a little upset at myself for not making any before yesterday! This will be a recipe I will use over and over again! The best part is, it tastes BETTER than the ranch you get from the store, without all the extra preservatives which may or may not be bad for you. 

Next I made some homemade french onion dip. I've been looking for years out here to find a good chip dip. I've tried several brands and was never able to find one yummy enough. I guess I was spoiled with two delicious chip dips in Ohio, one a local dip called Lawsons, and another (which may be regional, i'm not sure) called Heluva Good. The past few months I decided that if I couldn't find one out here ot buy already made, that I would make one myself, and so I started my search for the perfect recipe. This recipe was GOOD! Doesn't taste like either of my favorite already made dips, but a completely different and delicious flavor! Vince and I tried Saturday night to make homemade potato chips, but they just didn't turn out right. Maybe we did it wrong?

As another side, I made some deviled eggs. Mmmm I could eat them all day!

Finally for dessert I made some football cake pops using our brand new KitchenAid! I got a Cake Pop book (created by the woman who blogs at Bakerella) for Christmas and these were my first attempt. I think they turned out really well! Plus the  chocolate melts we got cheap from Winco. The only thing I wasn't happy with is the white stripes. I used royal icing because I didn't have any of the white decorating gel that the recipe called for, but now I know it's not the best.