War and Peace: An Update

Well, it's been 3 months since I started War and Peace so I thought I'd give you an update. By my original calculations, I should have been to about page 630 by now, but alas, I've just reached page 400. My goal was to finish it by my birthday (July 23rd) but it looks like I'm headed towards New Year's 2010. Sigh. Oh well, at least I'm still at it, right?

War and Peace hasn't been an easy book to get into. It seems like we're just barely getting past the intro, which makes sense. It usually takes 1/3 of the book or so to really get into the meat and get to know the characters and such. I think I'm just beginning to get all the characters straightened out. Which in itself is tough. There are like 50 different characters who each have 5 different names that all end in "-ov."

But, I'm actually starting to like it I think. I don't fall asleep as easily as I used to and I tend to get sucked into reading "just one more chapter" on a somewhat regular basis. There's more twists and turns and drama going on to keep things lively. Can you believe Rostov lost 43,000 roubles in a poker game? Yeah me neither. He never knows when to say "when." Ok, I have no idea how much 43,000 roubles is. That's part of the problem with this book. I don't know what half of the things are that these people talk about. Even if I did know how much 43,000 roubles was, it doesn't mean anything compared to today's equivalent. And they use all these words that aren't even in the dictionary. I know because I look up words all the time. About 50% of the time they aren't in it. Granted I use a small general purpose dictionary, but still. There's a unit of distance measurement they use all the time called a "verst." It's used in the way we use "miles." No idea how far a "verst" is. I'm sure I could find answers to all these questions using my friend the Internets, but if I stop to look up every single thing, it's going to take me til New Years 2020 to finish this thing.

So, it's slow going. I'm not sure I understand everything I should, but I'm giving it my best shot. It's like reading the King James Version of the Bible. It's English, but it's not. My wonderful friend Heidi was nice enough to give me her made-up version of "Cliff's Notes" for War and Peace. They were very helpful.

Heidi's Cliff's Notes for War and Peace

(slightly edited for sensitive audiences)

"There was this War and then afterwards there was this Peace. And Tolstoy said Blahbiddy blah blah blah. Some hot air. THE END. In Russian."

Drowning Worms

Note: I've had this post in edit mode for a while because I haven't been feeling very enlightened as far as good fishing writing goes. But, I figured I might as well finish this and post it because I haven't done a new post here for a couple months. It's not my best work, but it's something. Maybe now that Spring is here and things are warming up, my brain will thaw out along with the fish.

For the first time in a long time, Seth and I went out fishing with our spinning rods. We hadn't used a spinning rod since Thanksgiving weekend and our personal rods hadn't been used since the summer.

We set out to go fish a sweet looking spot on the Ogden River. We bought some worms at the local gas station and headed up to the spot we'd been eyeing for the past few weeks. We had talked about going to this one particular spot for a while and now we actually were going to follow through and do it.

Much to our dismay we found the river had dropped significantly and no longer was the perfect worm drowning spot. So, we decided to go to a new spot on the lower part of the Weber River that Seth had heard about. It was at the base of the canyon, just as you get onto the highway. Somehow we missed the turnoff and instead of making a huge loop to come back to that spot, we just kept going and thought maybe we'd hit up the Devil's Slide area again.

The river was very busy that day and all the good spots were too crowded. So, we ended up going way up to Lost Creek Reservoir. We were disappointed to find the reservoir was still completely iced over except for a small patch on the southeast end. There were just a couple other guys there, but it was a big enough piece of open water that we could go on the other side of the lake and be far enough away.

On our way over to the far side of the lake we had to jump over a small brook. Seth made it over ok, but because it was so muddy, my feet kept getting sucked into the muck and I couldn't push off the bank very well. I made a futile attempt to leap over the water and managed to clumsily fall into the mud on the other side. My left foot landed in the water and my hands slapped the mud on the bank. I sat there for a moment, my hands covered in mud and foot slowly getting wet until I decided I'd better climb out before I made matters worse. The damage wasn't really that bad... it turned out I only had a wet sock and the mud could easily be washed off my hands. Then Seth asked a question that made my ears prick up, "Does the mud smell bad?" "Uh I don't know, I can't smell anything, can you?" I said, holding my mud covered hand out for him to smell. Just as I'd planned, Seth leaned in to smell it and I bumped his nose. "What did you do that for?!" he said, shocked. For a moment I thought he might kill me... but I think I laughed hard enough that he somehow forgave me. I couldn't help it... I HAD to do it.

We fished for a short while with Jake's spin a lure and didn't catch anything. Then we switched to worms... throwing them out onto the ice and making them jump off into the open water. It didn't work either. We never did catch anything. We didn't see any fish though. I think they were too smart and were still hiding under the ice way over by the dam.

Drowning worms was still fun though. I think maybe it's my crappy fishing pole that makes me take it down a notch. That thing is a piece of junk. Ok, it's not that bad, but it really makes me mad sometimes because it goes all crazy and my line gets tangled up. But aside from that, bait fishing has become my go-to fishing method lately for the days when I just feel like relaxing. I can set up my fishing chair on the bank of a lake, throw a bubble and a worm on and just sit. The longer I go without catching a fish, the longer I get to look at the scenery and suck on a juice box. Not that I don't welcome the intermittent surprise of catching a fish...

Today's Special May 10-16th

Ok so I always wonder if anybody reads my menu posts. So, I'm going to take a survey... how many of you out there want me to keep doing this? I put an anonymous survey on my page so you can vote! Isn't that fun?! Feel free to leave me regular comments too.... i.e. Is it useful to you? Have you ever made anything I posted? Is there something that would make you like it more? I'm going to make up a menu each week whether I post it or not, but I figured if nobody really paid attention to it, I wouldn't spend the time. So be honest. Would you rather just look at my Recipezaar account for ideas? Is this easier for you? Do you want me to quit my whining?

Sunday: Dinner at Annie's house for Mother's Day/Mom's Birthday. She & Eric made us turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy and beets. It was very good. I brought Rolls and Strawberry Cream Cake.

Monday: Enchiladas Verdes (this was a new recipe, it was VERY good. I'll be posting this on my Recipezaar account soon. I used canned tomatillos and chiles in this instead of roasting them myself because I'm a busy woman on the go. Ok I'm just lazy.)

Tuesday: P.F. Chang's Mongolian Beef with Moo Shu Noodles (Both new recipes, but both were recommended by Annie).

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Gyros (I'm getting the gyro meat from Snider's Family Meats in Ogden) with Tzatziki (the white yogurt sauce- got this from Annie too). Bought some Greek pitas and got onions, tomatoes and feta cheese to put on them.

Weekend: Grilled Pork Loin (don't know what recipe yet, just wanted to grill something). Might get one already stuffed/seasoned from Snider's or maybe I'll try this recipe Grilled Pork Loin with Apple-Cherry Filling with Caraway. We'll probably steam some zucchini squash to go with it.

A Girl's Gotta Do What a Girl's Gotta Do

Do any of you know what this is?

No, it's not THAT. {Blush}

Well I know what it is. It's called a flapper and all of you have at least one. You've probably never seen it, or haven't had a close enough view of one to realize that's what this picture is. But, why would you? The flapper lives in your toilet!

That's right my friends, there's a flapper living in your toilet. It's the thing that lifts up every time you flush so the water can get out of the tank and into the toilet bowl. If you don't believe me, go take the lid off the tank and flush your toilet. There it is! It's waving at you! HA!

Why am I doing a post about toilet parts? Well it just so happens that the plastic chain attached to the flapper in MY bathroom broke off last night when I flushed. Stupid piece of junk. Who uses a plastic chain? Cheap apartments, that's who. So, I had to stick my hand in the tank to lift up the flapper in order to get it to flush. No big deal, but I definitely didn't want to have to do that forever.

So at this point you're probably wondering why I didn't just call the apartment maintenance guys to come fix it and stop my whining. I could have. But I didn't really want to. There are several reasons why:

#1 I hate calling people.

#2 I don't like strangers coming into our apartment.

#3 I figured it'd be a pretty cheap fix.

#4 I kind of wanted to see if I could fix it.

So I'm a sucker for home repairs. I know that sounds really weird. Not that I'd attempt anything huge, but simple projects I'm totally game for. I've installed shower heads and light fixtures and such, so I figured this wouldn't be too bad. It's not like the toilet exploded and there were parts everywhere. It was just a simple flapper replacement!

When I got home from work today, I turned the water off behind the toilet, flushed it one more time to get the water out, and took the flapper off. Simple enough, right? Then I cleaned the thing off because it looked disgusting, and put it in my purse. I always hear stories about people having to go back to the hardware store ten times because they don't get the right parts, especially for plumbing projects. I figured if I took it with me, I'd up my chances of not having to go back and forth a million times.

I headed down the street to Lowe's and found their plumbing department. There on the wall were all the toilet parts. And there they were... flappers. All new and sparkling in their plastic packages, just waiting for me to bring them home and put them in my toilet. But, only one would be chosen. I picked a beautiful red one that was just under $5. It was the cheapest one and looked just like the one in my purse, only this one had a metal chain attached. Classy.

I went and paid the lady and took my brand new shiny flapper home. Gracie met me at the door and followed me back to the bathroom to help install our new found friend, Flappy. Gracie sat on the toilet seat looking into the bowl while I trimmed off excess parts and installed Flappy. The first time I hooked him up, the chain was too long and it didn't let enough water out to flush. But, after taking it up a couple links and trying again, my toilet was back to normal. Gracie was very impressed.

All of this took less than 30 minutes, and that included driving to Lowe's and back. It only cost me $4.88 and there wasn't even any cursing involved! Plus it was kind of fun. Does that make me a plumber? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure I have a good enough crack to qualify. Anyway, welcome to the family, Flappy, it's nice to have you here.

Are You Ready for Adventure?

I first want to start by congratulating Seth. On April 30th he finished one more semester of school! Not only did he finish, but he was able to maintain a GPA of 3.59 while taking 19 credits AND working full-time. I like to call him Professor Hanson because he's such a genius!

To celebrate finishing the hardest semester ever, we decided to take our first camping trip of the season to get away and relax. No work or school to worry about, just nature and relaxation.

We decided to go to Buckhorn Wash down in the San Rafael Swell. If we'd been there before, neither of us could remember it, and it was a somewhat close, fairly people-free spot. I got all our stuff packed up and ready to go so we could leave in the morning on Friday, May 1st. Seth got a brand new big 2-room Cabelas tent from his parents for his birthday so we were pretty excited about trying it out. Plus we'd decided to splurge and get a 3 burner Coleman camp stove (with accompanying griddle!), so we stopped off at Cabelas on the way down to pick one up. Wahoo for camping stuff!

We couldn't believe how beautiful the drive was. It felt like we were driving through an Irish Spring commercial when we went through Spanish Fork Canyon! Maybe they should make a new soap called Spanish Fork Spring. Ok maybe not.

When we got to Buckhorn Wash we decided we'd better go pick out a camp spot before all the good ones were taken. We found a place near the far end of the wash, nestled in a cove below a towering sandstone cliff and started to set up our new gear.

I'm used to setting up tiny dome tents and Seth wasn't too familiar with our tent style either, but somehow we managed to get the thing up. It was huge! It has a 10x16' floor so we felt like we were in an outdoor mansion!




After getting all our gear organized Seth gathered up a little wood and made a fire for us. We sat around the campfire and talked and admired the scenery. Not too long after roasting our hotdogs and oatmeal creme cookies, it started to sprinkle. Luckily it was starting to get dark by this time so we headed into the tent with our chairs. We also decided to bring in our campstove, cooler and anything else we wanted from the car. We had so much room inside that tent!

This is the rock face above our campsite. Seth dubbed the figure "Spirit Man."

Another rock face at our campsite. There's two figures in this pic, but they didn't have names.

The next morning it was still raining pretty good and I was glad we'd brought everything into the tent the night before. We spent the morning figuring out our new camp stove and cooking a leisurely breakfast of pancakes and bacon. I ruined a couple pancakes trying to get used to the griddle, but that's to be expected, right?

Our tent had a little awning on the front which we'd just rolled up out of the way when we put it up, but we decided to put it up while we were making breakfast so we could open the screen door (to ventilate for the stove) without getting wet. Surprisingly enough it stayed strong too and after a couple adjustments, we found a way to keep the water from pooling up on top. It was a great morning just relaxing and watching the rain.

The famous 3 burner Coleman stove!

Well, about the time we were done with breakfast the rain stopped. We cleaned up the dishes and then headed out on a designated route to try and find some petroglyphs and pictographs that were scattered along the wash. It turned out to be a bit of a hide-and-seek game as some of the features weren't exactly easy to find.

Our first stop was a huge wall of pictographs and petroglyphs. It's right along the road so they're easily seen. Apparently the drawings are from two groups of people. The pictographs (paintings) are from an older civilization about 2000 years ago. The petroglyphs (carved pictures) are from a civilization from about 1000 years ago. They aren't sure exactly what tribes of Native Americans they were from or exactly what all the pictures mean. Seth has a theory that the people drawn in the pictures are representations of figures they saw on the rock walls. If you look at the markings on the rock walls just right, they look just like people. I think Seth is onto something! Who needs scientists and anthropologists when you've got Professor Hanson?

The next stop was a signature on a rock wall from Matt Warner, dated February 17, 1920. I guess he was some guy who used to run around with Butch Cassidy. It took us a minute to find it, but eventually we did. Maybe we should've parked at the pull-out right in front of it and followed the footpaths. Eh, we'll make our own pathways! Anyway, you could tell why Matt became an outlaw. He must not have been the brightest of guys... he spelled his own name wrong (Mat) and his "9" was backwards so it looked like a "P." Stick with what suits you I guess.








The next stop was another set of pictographs. I used my deductive reasoning and decided it'd be best to pull over in the parking area and follow the man-made trail (the pictographs weren't visible from the road). Seth headed off in the other direction towards another large rock wall. In his defense the instructions told us the pictographs were on the East side of the road (they were on the West side) and we'd seen 3 climbers up there the day before. Plus there was a small trail. I followed my woman's intuition up the trail on the west side and found the large group of pictographs (not to gloat or anything...).








After this stop we drove to another smaller group of pictographs. It was easily found by spotting a set of initials someone had shot into the rock next to it. They must have been using some sort of bazooka though because those bullet holes were huge! You could have put a stick of dynamite into those suckers!


Our next item was a bit tougher to find. There was supposed to be a dinosaur track up on this sandstone ledge, but there were no signs or anything to show where it was. We wandered around for a little while before finally climbing over a big bunch of rocks onto a second sandstone ledge. I was looking everywhere for the thing and was about to just call it quits when Seth found it. It was under a rock! I think people cover it so it doesn't get ruined, but still. A sign or something would be nice. So, we did what anyone else would've done... we took pictures and then put a giant rock on top of it again. To our credit we drew a big "X" on the rock and wrote "The track isn't here." Come on, people would totally look there anyway!








Right across from where the dinosaur track was located, was a camp spot with a small canyon behind it. We decided to stop and eat lunch at the mouth of the little canyon (pre-assembled tuna salad kits from the store are the best!) and then began hiking. We walked a little ways to were the 4 wheeler tracks stopped and ducked through some bushes. The trail wound around for a short distance and then opened up into a little alcove where the hike ended. It was this beautiful shaded room with high rock walls on all sides, probably no more than 10 feet across. And what did we find? Secret petroglyphs on the wall! We didn't know they were there, as I'm sure many people didn't, and we found them! We had talked about finding our own secret pictographs and we found some on our first exploration! I'm sure we weren't the first to see them, but I bet there aren't many people who have.








When we got back from that hike, we decided to find another place to explore. There was a short hike mentioned on our little guide paper so we decided to go check it out. That hike wasn't much farther than our first one, but it was still fun. We probably could've gone farther, but it involved a little climbing and I wussed out. Seth was able to climb up the place where we stopped and found a magic brown sparkly rock. We're not really sure what it is, but it's probably worth A LOT.


We decided to go back to camp after the last hike and just relax for awhile. We went for a little walk around our campsite and found this rock that looked like a giant butt. It was so funny. We even climbed in there! There was a lot of prickly pear cactus around and I mentioned to Seth that I'd never tried any but that for some reason it looked really good. With that, he whipped out his pocket knife and cut off a chunk so I could taste it. It wasn't as good as I thought it'd be, though it wasn't necessarily bad. I thought it tasted like spongy cheesies. I'm sure you've eaten cheesies before, all kids have. If you don't remember what they are look here.

Come on, it totally looks like a giant butt!

That evening turned out to be really beautiful and clear so we stayed up late and star gazed and talked around the fire. Oh, I forgot that a bunch of people wussed out after the first night and ditched their campsites so me and Seth went around to all of them to raid their firewood. Maybe THEY should've gotten a fancy Cabelas tent too! Crazy City Slickers with their Walmart tents and Barbie sleeping bags. Don't they know this is the WILDERNESS? Not just anybody can survive out here!


The next morning we ate another lovely pancake and bacon breakfast (much better this time... I think I got that griddle all figured out!). It had rained a bit early that morning so we hung out and cleaned things up while we waited for the tent to dry out. Then with sad hearts we took down our desert mansion and put all our stuff back in the car.

Doesn't he look so happy with his plate of bacon?

I told Seth he had to "Steamroll" the tent to get the air out.

Before we left we decided to go for one last hike in the canyon across from our campsite. We thought maybe it'd turn into a slot canyon or something. This hike had a lot of big boulders and things to climb over and under so it made it a bit more exciting. The hike only went for about a 1/2 mile or so before we hit a big wall that was too tall to climb over. Oh well, maybe next time.








Seth decided from this trip that it'd be fun to take up canyoneering. We would've been able to go a lot farther if we'd had a rope and some basic gear. I think canyoneering could be fun. It doesn't seem quite as death-defying as rock climbing (I don't want to fall 1000 feet to my death, thank you very much!). Maybe we'll get a book or something and learn some of the tricks.


Just outside the wash is the Wedge overlook. The Wedge is like a small scale Grand Canyon. It was amazing! We couldn't even tell there was this magnificent canyon there until we were right up next to the cliff! So beautiful! We sat on the edge of the cliff in the warm sun and ate another lunch of tuna sandwiches before we got back in the car to drive back to civilization.








It really was tough coming back to real life after such a great weekend. Seth and I wanted to thank Mom and Daddy Hanson for the awesome tent (without which we surely would have been miserable), Annie and Eric for checking on Gracie the cat while we were gone, and Cabelas for allowing us to purchase their fine merchandise. Without all of you, this weekend would not have been possible. Oh, and thank you God, for creating nature without which we wouldn't have had a place to camp.

You Look Just Like Your Mother

That's the line I've heard from friends and strangers alike my entire life. I always saw it as compliment and a secret one-up on my sisters. At least I looked like I belonged to the family. For all anybody else knew, they could be the mailman's kids or cousins visiting from Novascotia.

It's so funny to see so much of yourself in someone else. I think of my mom whenever I look at my pasty white legs or my poochy belly or my ski-jump nose. I even occasionally catch myself displaying her mannerisms like putting my hand on my hip when I brush my teeth or sighing a lot.

Today as I was trying to jog my brain and think of my favorite memories of Mom, I realized one thing: my mother showed she loved us by her generosity and service. All the memories I could think of were of my mom serving us in some way... making Sunday dinner, driving the carpool, taking us to doctor and dentist appointments, going to dance recitals and band recitals. She is always taking us out to eat and volunteering to do this or that... no matter how much of a pain and hassle it would be to her. She's always done a lot of the hard work and boring things so the rest of us could have fun. Looking back I finally realize how much she has sacrificed for her family. How much she does for us without much in return but a "Thanks, Mom."

The memories that stick with me most about Mom were from our one-on-one time. Back in my college days, we used to go out to lunch together at least once a week. I think we had a go-out-to-lunch day. It was back in my dating hey-days and I'd tell her all about my boy troubles and she'd listen to me and give me motherly advice. I think I kept my sanity because of her. I'm sure she just laughed to herself about all the dumb things I worried about. Listening to a young twentyish-year old girl that much should bump her up to sainthood. Not that she needed another reason to be considered for the position. She probably qualified for that over twenty years ago.

I want everyone to know how much I love and admire my mom. She's an incredibly smart, talented, loving person and I hope I can always make her proud to say she's my mom.

I stole this picture from my mom's Facebook page... I think it's actually a good picture of her. I'm pretty sure she took it with a webcam which always makes me smile for some reason. Not as professional as some of the other pics of her... but this one is more Mom.

Today's Special May 3-9th

Man this is really tough to keep up with all these meals! I keep getting more and more behind. Oh well.

Sunday: We ate at Carl's Jr. on the way home from camping. I had a Six Dollar Guacamole Bacon Burger... Delicious!

Monday: Tuna Patty Hamburgers (I never got around to making these last week!)

Tuesday: Homestyle Mac & Cheese AND Prep for tomorrow's meal

Wednesday: Nogales Steak Tacos (this was supposed to be for Cinco de Mayo but I didn't realize I had to let stuff marinade overnight!)... this is a new recipe

Thursday: Pressure Cooker Split Pea & Ham Soup

Friday: Lime Chicken Kabobs with Grilled Veggies (New recipe see below-Thanks Steph!)

Chicken Kabobs:

6 T Key Lime Juice
6 T Soy Sauce
6 T Orange Peach Mango frozen juice concentrate
2 tsp minced garlic

Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces and marinate for two hours.
Put onto skewers and grill until cooked thoroughly.

Veggies:

Zucchini
Yellow Squash
Red Onion
Asparagus
Tomatoes
Mushrooms
Parmesan Cheese (about 1/3 C, but depends on how many veggies you have)
Olive Oil (about 1/4 C, you want to lightly coat all the veggies)
Key Lime Juice (about 2 T, you want to lightly coat all the veggies)
Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Cut the veggies into bite-sized pieces and place into a big bowl. Coat lightly with olive oil and key lime juice. Cook on the grill in a vegetable basket, adding the tomatoes half-way through. Once cooked, place into your serving bowl and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.