Hole in the Wall

Okay so I admit that my sense of humor is sort of twisted and not very consistent.

One of the funniest shows that I have seen lately is Wipeout. But really, the funny parts are in the first 20 minutes or so. I guess I am just rude and find people totally falling on their faces hilarious-- mostly because they sign up for it and know what they are getting themselves into. I was too much of a snob to ever purposefully watch it-- one night when Ang was visiting we were flipping channels and came across Wipeout. And then I laughed so hard that I had tears running down my cheeks and couldn't breathe.

However, I think a show coming on this fall may even out-do Wipeout. If you watched So You Think You Can Dance this week then you saw the commercials for it: Hole in the Wall. I cracked up every time the commercial came on-- and it was the same commercial every time. I guess it's another idea taken from a Japanese TV Show. I couldn't get the YouTube video to post on here-- so follow the link. So funny.

Hole in the Wall

One of my new "favorite" shows.

JUST COOK THIS! With Sam the Cooking Guy is fabulous, I love it.

Yes. My life, and therefore blog, has devolved into one in which I get my kicks from watching cooking shows.

But this show isn't like the other cooking shows. Other cooking shows like, for example, Rachel Ray. I have attempted to watch her show a couple of times, but I only last for about 5 minutes, and then I was exhausted. She makes it look so "simple" except for the fact that you have to know what the hell you are doing in the first place AND have about 10 random ingredients that aren't sold in most grocery stores.

Sam is different. *He never specifies an exact amount on anything. And he never has stuff already measured exactly in the little clear glass bowls all lined up pretty on the counter. And sometimes he drops things. And burns himself. And his eyes water when he is cooking onions. And he cooks in his own real-life kitchen, in his house. So sometimes he has to search for stuff in his fridge for a second.

This may be stating the obvious but I am not a huge fan of cooking in general. Honestly, I don't remember the last time I cooked an entire meal. When Jeff and I were first married I cooked dinner every night until I realized that he loved me a lot even when I didn't cook so the cooking came to a slow and somewhat screeching halt.

But, I want to try some of the things he has cooked on the show the past 2 episodes so I am going to attempt it. Wish me luck.

*On the website the recipes include measurements-- but my guess is that they don't have to be exact, which means a few less measuring cups and spoons to clean up afterward!

Note so self: There are vegetarian recipes too.

happiness 50:10:40

Last night after watching Friday Night Lights (which is as fantastic as ever) we watched 20/20. They were talking about happiness and supposedly happiness is 50% genetic, 10% situational, and 40% attitude. They compared 2 twin sisters who both had "extreme makeovers" a couple of years ago and compared their levels of happiness. One sister had a husband and 3 kids and her own business. The other was a single mother with one daughter, no boyfriend, fiance, etc. and worked as a beautician. Their hypothesis was that because the twins have the same genetics and both looked the same (situational) that their happiness level must be because of their attitudes. The first sister with the husband, kids, etc. was happier than the single mom. The show made it out to be that the unhappier sister just needed to shape up her attitude and be happy because there was nothing different between her and her sister.

What the?!

I think it is a bunch of crap. I am not at all saying that women need a man to be happy-- but isn't possible that the happier sister has a little more sand in her happy bucket since she has the emotional support of a husband? And maybe less stress since she isn't solely responsible for the care of her children? I know that I have been a lot happier in general since Jeff and I have been married. I am not tempted to drive off cliffs nearly as often as I was before so I have a very difficult time believing that the "situational" only counts for 10% of ones happiness. And I bet it helped the unhappier sister a whole bunch to be told it was her own fault she wasn't as happy as her twin.

Note to self: Denmark is the happiest country in the world. I think that if I could smoke weed and drink at a young age legally without the guilt I would probably be pretty happy too.

wonder pets

okay so I promise I will start blogging about normal "adult" things when I am not at my sister's house anymore. but in the meantime: If you have DVR or TiVo or whatever it is called, look up Wonder Pets. I just watched an episode with my nieces called Save the Puppy and I was cracking up.

*Gwen- keep recording it until this episode gets saved-- I think this may be the television/musical equivalent to your cuteoverload.com.

things I've learned

I can't wait to have a kid just so I have an excuse to watch little einsteins with them.

random music

I was watching Conan O'Brien tonight while playing on my computer tonight. I glanced up at the tv screen and saw this guy in a band rolling around on his piano and slamming his hands on the keys. So I grabbed the remote and watched the band play from the beginning. Maybe I am way behind but I'd never heard of them- MUTEMATH. I'm intrigued.



AND THEN:
A Fine Frenzy was on Carson Daily's show. Once again, never heard of her, but I like it. After she played the song she gave the biggest grin- it made me like her even more.



**if you look this song up on YouTube someone put clips of Pam & Jim from the Office to it. Pretty funny.

the best day ever

Sorry, I wrote "the best day ever" as my title and immediately had Sponge Bob Square Pants bouncing around in my head so I had to share the joy.

Really though, yesterday was one of the best days I have had in a long time. After Jeff finished the yard work he came inside and we were able to hang out all day for the first time in what feels like forever. We figured out the best arrangement to keep us both happy-- he watched football while I quilted in the same room. Luckily, my new sewing machine is really quiet so I am able to sew without it being a huge bother. I don't mind sports on the tv as long as I am not expected to watch them. In the past, we inevitably argued about him watching sports because he expected me to sit and watch them with him. Or watch him watch them. Or something like that. Needless to say, I usually refused and left the room to read a book, or he caved in and changed the channel while I felt all sorts of pressure to find something good to watch instead, or more likely, I just forced myself to take a nap such that we were sharing the same space and air but I didn't have to consciously watch the game. But yesterday, being the best day ever, we didn't argue once about the stupid tv and we actually watched "A Time to Kill," more than sports.
Then, we went out to dinner and rented a couple of movies and a game for Nintendo Wii. (There are some advantages to living with the in-laws). We rented the game Trauma Center: Second Opinion. It is very addicting. Usually, my attention span for video games is about 2.5 seconds but this one is really fun. You are a doctor and have to perform random surgeries on patients. I kept getting really frustrated because I hadn't played Wii before so I wasn't used to being able to move and rotate the controller to do things in the game. If that makes sense. Although, it will probably work to my advantage in other Wii games because I have always been pretty spastic while playing video games. As a kid, I would jerk my hands and the controller all over the place thinking for some reason it would turn my car faster or make mario jump a little higher while my brother, who is 5 years younger, looked on in disgust. Anyway, last night, as it got later and later my patience started to drop dramatically until I finally walked away from the game in disgust. Jeff thought it was very amusing.

On a completely different note, Friday Night Lights has earned the #1 spot over Grey's Anatomy, at least this week.

Let the quilting begin.

I found a quilt shop in St. George. Actually, Jeff's mom found a quilt shop in St. George and took me to it. They sell Pfaff sewing machines which I have read are better than the bernina AND they are less expensive too. So I bought one. Jeff and I made a deal that if I moved to Utah I could quilt and scrapbook to my heart's content. Well, that also included me getting a sewing machine- so after promising not to ask for a new one for 10 years I ordered one. It won't be in until Wednesday or Thursday but they let me take one of the shop's home for the weekend to play with. Yesterday I started a quilt for my sister-in-law Jen's baby that is due the end of December. Hopefully it turns out okay-- if I manage to finish it all by myself it may be the first project I have ever started and completely finished without Gwen having to swoop in and save the day. Or the project.

WORLD'S GREATEST INVENTION: Ear plugs.
Besides one or two months when Jeff got emaciated skinny, he has snored every night of our entire marriage. I never could figure out why I was tired all the time until he was living in Utah and I was still in Arizona and finally able to sleep through the night. When he would come to visit on the weekends I would have an even harder time sleeping because I wasn't able to tune out the snoring and didn't sleep well at all. Snoring sucks for both people because I know he wasn't keeping me awake on purpose, but I woule still be annoyed, tired, and irritated when the night was over and I had spent half of it trying to think happy thoughts over the continuous NOISE on the other side of the bed. Finally, after spending the last night in our house on the couch I gave in and bought some ear plugs. They are hot pink. They are amazing. When I wake up in the morning I want to give Jeff a kiss, not a swift kick to the shin. It's wonderful. I even managed to stay awake for multiple sessions of General Conference. Normally, General Conference means a guaranteed nap. Or two.

Finally, this being my first post since the premiere of Friday Night Lights, all I have to say is WHAT THE?! I can't see how this can turn into anything other than "I know what you did last summer" even though I never actually saw the movie, I vaguely remember reading the book when I was younger.

uuhh. . . nevermind?

So I woke up with a fat headache this morning. I think it's from crying last night. My dad thinks I am pregnant. Just one word, repeat after me: In-fert-ile.

My parents have decided to go visit my Grandpa before they move so they won't even be here this weekend for us to come visit them. Good thing I chose the middle of the night last night to argue with Jeff about it just in time to wake up this morning and find out it was for nothing. So typical.

Well enough about that stuff, here is the important news:

Okay, for those of you who have not watched this show- you still have time. I just looked at the website and they have all of last season's episodes on-line. Seriously, one of the best shows that I have gotten sucked into. Honestly, I may buy every season when it comes out on DVD to learn how to be a good parent and coach's wife. So good. I think that Grey's Anatomy is going downhill and Friday Night Lights is taking over as my #1 favorite show. (I hope that I don't have to eat my words in 36 hours if the season premiere is weak).

I am making the last part of my move today. Then it will be official. I am kind of stressing out because I don't know where I will be able to scrapbook at Jeff's parent's house. I need to figure out something- for once I will have all of the time in the world and none of the space. They have a folding table, I may just get to beg them to let me drag it upstairs or something. Wish me luck.

gone.

I left Arizona this morning- it still seems surreal. It's very strange to move but still have a lot of our stuff in the house. The drive went well. I listened to a book on tape- a biography about Marie Antoinette. I can't remember who the author is but it is good so far. I think I would probably be frustrated if I was reading it because of all of the French names and pronunciations. I will post later when I have the case with me and have gotten a little farther through it.

I drove over the Hoover Dam- the bridge they are building still amazes me. The first time I saw it was in the middle of the night-- it seemed gigantic. It really is huge, but not as monstrous in the daylight as at night.

The girl who played 'Madison' on Everwood is now on Chuck. See, I told you Everwood was a good show. How could it not be a good show when all the actors who were in it are popping up on primetime sitcoms?

Stupid Photoshop

I dropped Jeff off at the airport this afternoon. When I got home I tried to download Adobe Photoshop Elements in preparation for my sweet new digital camera that I am going to get. I haven't been so frustrated in a long, long time. The laptop that I am using has Windows Vista on it and I had no idea how big of a pain the whole process was going to be. Had I known, I would have just read a book instead and gone to the store tomorrow and bought the program then. Let's just say that Jeff was able to fly to Vegas, go to my parent's house, check out my dad's organized garage, eat a brownie, get gas, and then drive all the way to his parent's house in St. George, and start his laundry before I was even able to get to the part where the program set up asks for the serial number (the serial number that I found out after much swearing, is not even available until 6 am Pacific Standard Time, aka, tomorrow).

SO DUMB. As I was raging about the whole thing my body temperature must have raised about 10 degrees and on top of that my laptop was burning stripes onto the top of my thighs—all of a sudden I was having flashbacks of sitting in the passenger seat holding two large pizzas and crazy bread (if we were feeling adventurous) on my lap on the drive home from Little Ceasers with my mom in over a hundred degree weather. So to compensate I went downstairs and scooped up and ate a giant bowl of ice cream. While I was scooping it out of the carton I kept hearing the voice-over guy from Tuesday's Biggest Loser who asked "How many jumping jacks would you have to do to burn off a bowl of ice cream?" and other guilt inducing questions. I think the answer was somewhere around two million. However, my mom's response to the jumping jack question- "that just tells me that jumping jacks aren't a very efficient exercise" made it possible for me to love every bowl scraping spoonful of my chocolate & coffee ice cream.

On a more-happy-less-rage-and-guilt note, the tv show Brothers & Sisters was on tonight. Last season I recorded every episode because the writer from Everwood is one of the writers for the Brothers & Sisters. Unfortunately, I was too busy watching Everwood to actually watch B & S, and then we moved. Well tonight I saw that it (B & S) was on and it was new—they were doing one of those episodes where they explain the previous season in its entirety in one 60 minute time slot. So I recorded it. But I did watch it long enough to see that Amy from Everwood was added to the cast of Brothers & Sisters sometime last season. Therefore, I plan to watch every single episode of Brothers & Sisters that I possibly can. Jeff wasn't too thrilled by the news. But that is okay because as with every other slightly embarrassing show that I get sucked into—he will first complain, then he will mock it (and my addiction to said show), then he will just happen to linger in the room a little longer than normal as I watch an episode (asking questions regarding the storyline as I fast forward commercials), then he will covertly watch a recorded episode when I am not at home, then he will watch an entire episode with me, and the next thing I know I will be getting in trouble for watching it without him. It's a beautiful process to witness and it's one of the many reasons I love him so much.