Live...In Concert

This last week I got to go to a concert of one of my favorite artists: Brandi Carlile. This is the second time I've gotten to go to her, and I'll probably try to go everytime she comes to town. The fortunate thing, is that she is from Seattle, so I think she makes frequent trips to spokane.

Derek, and I went, with my sister Rebekah to the Fox theater, where she was accompianied by the Spokane Symphony. I have to admit, I was a little wary about this, because I didnt' know what kind of concert it would be. I do like the symphony, but I came to hear Brandi sing! I was definately not disapointed. It was such a good show that it even made me forget the guy's BO that was sitting in front of us... until he moved and stirred up the, ah aroma, again.



Oh man, I can't even tell you how much I loved it. She is not well known, but has had several of her songs play on Grey's Anatomy, the most well known was, "The Story". Anyway I don't have pictures becuase they didn't really turn out but here are a few song samples. These are my two favorite songs.
Turpentine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzXhoMOn90Q

and The Story:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y72jRaoRvHs

Orange Tulips! this is the third attempt to take this picture. I wish now I had saved them to show the progress... I asked Derek to take my picture with the latest flowers. The first picture I looked stoned, according to him, which I agreed with him. The next picture he told me to widen my eyes more, and (Rebekah, you know what's coming...You should make a post about it!) I looked like a deer in the headlights. this is taken of me laughing from the last picture. Its the best one. Anyway, once again, I am loving, "The Year of the Flowers!"

Cupcakes

I am slacking in the exercising department. Today I was dragging my feet, as usual, to go to the gym. I got changed and was almost out the door, when I thought about these cupcakes i wanted to make. Well, as I had the butter sitting out on the counter all night so it could be room temperature, and everything ready to make it, I stayed home from exercising and decided to make cupcakes instead. Could you blame me? I also had the excuse that I couldn't exercise AND make the cupcakes, as I work tonight. Anyway I am finally making another post, and here are the cupcakes i made:

I used a recipe from Marth Stewart for Vanilla cupcakes:

http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.fc77a0dbc44dd1611e3bf410b5900aa0/?vgnextoid=2665542a0780f010VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default

Then I used another recipe from Martha for Strawberry Meringue Buttercream. It was suppose to be fluffier, but I guess I didn't beat the egg whites enough. I can never get that just right. I used the strawberry freezer jam that I made last fall and still have alot of. It tastes really good:

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/strawberry-meringue-buttercream?autonomy_kw=strawberry%20buttercream%20frosting&rsc=header_2

I ended up with a cupcake that tasted like a really pumped up strawberry shortcake. Yumm-O!

You might ask if they were worth it, for the extra calories they provide, and that is not being worked off... I'll just say they're pretty darn good!

Flowers for a year: The Daffodil chapter

The current flowers from Derek are daffodils. He brought them as closed up tight little buds and it wasn't more than 24 hours before they were blooming. We have two bunches: one on our dining room table and one in our bedroom. It's a happy little reminder of spring and I love them.

See how happy they are?

Family Movies

I was thinking about something my sister, Rebekah posted in her facebook "First" about the movie Mr. Boogedy, and decided I would reminisce about some of the movies my family watched alot growing up. That was back before all the TV shows, and video games (not that my family had any anyway. The only video game machine we had was an atari, for a little bit). Every Sunday night there was the Disney movie on for the week that we watched together. Part of me misses those simpler days, where we actually played outside as kids, and together.
Anyway here is a list of some of the movies (any of my sisters can supplament this list, I'm sure I didn't think of them all)

Mr Boogedy
Back to the Beach
Back to the Future
Pete's Dragon
Savannah Smiles
Making Mr. Right
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
the Princess Bride
Happiest Millionaire
Babes in Toyland
In Search of the Castaways
The Swiss Family Robinson
The Wilderness Family
The Parent Trap (1, 2 & 3)
Superman
Star Wars
Oliver
Annie

I remember one of the chores I hated was having to organize the movies. The first 30 were easy because they were numbered, then it became a little dicier. Usually there were about three movies recorded on each VHS.

Here is a sample clip of one of the movies: The Happiest Millionaire. It's a scene me and my sisters acted out several times.

Happiness:

This picture makes me think of sun, and warm days, so I just wanted to put it up and wish you all a great day! (My most recent flowers from Derek- I love my husband!)

A Science Experiment?

Nope...I'm just about to cut onions. My eyes are super sensitive to the onion fumes and I can't see anything when I do, and my eyes sting for hours after unless I use Derek's lab goggles. Derek always laughs at me when I don these bad boys, but hey, it gets the dinner made.
Oh, and what do you think of my new widget: The Human Calendar? I think it rocks!