66 Degrees with a slight refreshing breeze....

Just starting out- the skyline was insane, but it's a little blurry here. 

Yesterday I had the day off, which is one of those rare glorious things that happens if you work 6 days in a row. You get one weekday off the next week. And it just so happened yesterday was glor-i-ous. A couple years ago, John & I hiked up Camelback- there are two ways up, and we went up Echo. Yesterday I took the Cholla Trail. Which I had heard was easier. It was not. In fact, it totally kicked my butt. Even so, I could not stop taking breaks to look around and see the beautiful homes and just appreciate the weather that I'm inside far too much to enjoy. Here's a few of my views:

More of the beginning

This is the TRAIL. Do you see it? Me neither. It was a lot of rock climbing near the top. Kind of crazy. Do you see the couple just chillin on the rocks. Yeah, that's a steep drop on the right. 

Looking down on what I just climbed up

More near the summit. My heart was pounding at this point.
(From working so hard) 

This dude was doing yoga at the summit. He thought he was a stud.
This picture was taken not-so-discreetly. 

The TOP!

More from the summit

Summit Part 3 

Is this not the coolest LIZARD ever?

Can you see the roadrunner?

Pfeffernuse & Palak Paneer

So my general rule about food is to eat pretty much whatever I haven't before. For example, the other day Jonmark & I went out to eat and I had Turtle soup. I've had a lot of things in my life, but never turtle. Yes, it was delicious. Yes, I had to keep telling myself I wasn't eating those precious little sea turtles on National Geographic.
This month, I've had 2 new things:

1- Pfeffernuse. From Fresh & Easy. But apparently they're not too hard to find. They look like this:
They are Danish, so I figured due to my 50% Danish-ness I was obligated to try them. And I love them. They are like thick, soft-ish ginger cookies with frosting. Crumbly. Thin frosting. They are soo soo good. I love ginger stuff. I had no idea these existed.

2- Palak Peneer. Yes, this one was frozen. I have made not really any new Indian friends lately (I guess I do have a new co-worker friend. Whose mom makes this, she said). Basically, it was curry and spinach and paneer cheese. I had no idea paneer cheese existed. It's kind of like mozarella, but less stringy. Anyways, what it comes down to is that you should try these both. mmmmm.....

So Handy

So, we've talked a few times on this blog about all the good household items I've acquired over the years: pink tools, electric screwdriver, first-aid supplies, super glue, and lots of misc. kitchen stuff. However, despite all these helpful items, I have somehow made it to 32 without this item:

A carpet shampooer. After some thorough research on amazon and a recommendation from a prior roommate, I am the new owner of a Little Green Machine. And I Love it. (Side note: I went to Wal-mart for this purchase. I pretty much never shop at Wal-mart, but one of my resolutions is to try to be a money maker and not a money spender, so I thought my frugality should start with this purchase. I just got on Target's website, though, and I may have only saved $1. Oh well. My card got declined there (at Wal-mart), which made me laugh. It was on fraud alert. hahaha. That's what you get for detouring out of your routine.)
So I got that, and some screws and zip ties at Home Depot. (more on that later.)
As soon as I walked in the door, I set to scrubbing up 9 little spots in my entry way that had been driving me crazy for about 6 months. And it worked awesome. And over the next few days, I cleaned my couches. Now, I've had my couches for about 8 years. They have been scotch-guarded and spot cleaned, but never deep cleaned because I can never bring myself to pay a hundred or so dollars to have someone clean them. It took hours and hours, but they look brighter and fluffier, and, well, so much cleaner.

And then, I had to attend to the pig. See, for over a year now, I've wanted a light-up Christmas pig. Last year they were all sold out. But this year I got one at Big Lots in November. I was so excited. But even though the idea was amazing, the design was flawed. And all its parts (like its legs and head) kept falling off. And unfortunately, this Christmas was the only Christmas of my life I didn't decorate at home. Chalk it up to being busy or distracted or to being in Idaho for 9 days, I didn't so much as buy a Christmas tree. Or attend to my pig. But last week, after a little time and 17 zip ties later, Gunther the Christmas Pig was ready to ring in the New Year! He looks amazing.

Gunther The New Year's/Christmas Pig

And for my last little handywomen feat, this is my new shaving cream. BTW, Target Soy shaving cream is by far the best I've ever used (and I've tried a lot). Unfortunately, when I opened up this bottle, the cap had fallen off and it wouldn't work. So I busted out my leopard duct tape, and it's worked like a dream ever since. whoo-hoo!

p.s. If you're wondering from my last post what a headliner is, it's the fabric on the ceiling of your car. And mine started to fall off right above the driver's seat, which was HORRIBLE to me, as it might actually be a sign that my car is 12 years old. So, after consulting with Brad, I peeled the molding back, peeled the edge of the fabric back until I could see the space inside and sprayed it full of spray adhesive. Then I took a ruler and smoothed the fabric back in place. It's not perfect, but it's close. And the Altima gets to live another day!

"Holy Crap I'm Single"

This is the lovely phase that went through my head this morning when I opened my eyes. After hours-ful of crazy dreams, it was the stark reality that awakened me.
Yes, it was my own doing. Yes, we spent the last year trying our hearts out.
Until mine wore out.
And gave up a little.
The first few days were my usual post-break-up productive days.
Months of junk mail was finally attended to.
My shower curtain is bleached fluffy white.
I was doing ok. Well, even.
And then there were the sudden bouts of crying.
For miscellaneous reasons.
Including hormones. And friends. And love.
And then there was a little arguing. With a little trying.
And then there was this morning.
Where the little bit of fear that lives in each of us tried to yell at me and ask
what on earth was I thinking.
And I told it I had to.
But this will take a bit of adjusting. That I may not have planned for all too well.
I mean, do we plan for single? Why would we do such a thing?
First, we think of crazy plans. Like moving, painting, buying.
And then, we think, "It's time to get settled. This may last awhile."
He was quite charming.
This is no time for replacement.
This is time for adjustment.
And I think of the people who I cannot mirror in this situation.
I cannot be like them,
But I can still be me. Maybe even a little bit more than before.
And I take a deep breath. And keep breathing. And start trusting.
Again.

(That was yesterday. Today I saw a therapist to make sure I'm not crazy who I'm quite certain will actually be no help at all. Because, I, of course, actually think I'm quite sane and grounded. But I did get to take the inkblot test and I think that was worth every penny. ;-) I also fixed my headliner with spray adhesive and a ruler and am remarkably impressed with the results.)

A Celestial View aka A Breathtaking New Year's

It is sometimes hard to explain how glorious the randomness of life is. For example, some mornings you go to work having no idea what to do for New Year's, and the next day you find yourself in Flagstaff watching a pinecone drop and eating amazing sushi. And then another friend who's been MIA for months happens to be there as well.

And then maybe the next day you spend your Sabbath a little bit differently than you will the rest of the year. Because you hunt down a Catholic cathedral and debate if lighting a candle would be sacreligious 'cause you mostly want to do it 'cause they do on movies and you never have, but you opt against it out of principle. Instead, you hunt down an energy vortex and stand on a mountain in Tree Pose because it's your favorite and makes you feel almost tall.

And then you get back in the car and your best friend tells you that he just spoke with the pilot doing biplane tours at the airport and that if Skylar and I can get him in the plane he can fly. And of course, that's what you go do. So everyone gets settled and you prepare yourself for a roller coaster ride and instead it feels like you are sailing in the sky. It's the most beautfiul scenery you've ever seen and a take-off and landing so smooth you barely know they happened. And, yes, the plane was designed in 1926 and is the cutest cherry red 278 horsepower machine you've ever seen. And, of course, now you want one. Someday.

Skylar the Magnificent and Pilot the Magnificent

My Favorite

The Seven Ridges no one sees. There's one 8-mile dirt road that leads to them.

So cute! And so excited

For now, you'll be content with the coolest, most peaceful, most incredible New Year's ever.

Here's to 2012!!

A Carbiener Christmas

So, yes, I brought Jonmark home for the holidays. Really?! Was I supposed to leave him here alone?! Was I supposed to be alone? No, of course not. Christmas is meant to be spent together, and that we did. I had 9 days off from work, and therefore, he did, too. (Except that we spent many long nights putting together his work presentation. Actually, he did. I usually fell asleep. But I was there for moral support.) Anyways, so Christmas vacation was awesome. And sometimes kinda boring. But rarely.

You see, it could also be known as our family's Gimp Little Christmas. You know there's Jonmark' s wheelchair, and then, our friend Kevin thought he broke his ankle, my dad was recovering from knee surgery, and my mom stepped off a ladder and fell on her back on their stairs (inside). She laid on her back on the couch most of the time. I fetched a lot of things for people :-) But I was really grateful for my legs! Jonmark and I made a super-quick run to Boise to meet and eat with Jessica & Nate. We ate at a new fancy restaurant called "Fork"  and basically just caught up on each other's lives. It was so good to see them again. We also went to the Boise co-op where we bought my favorite cookies. And Jonmark fell in love with Cloverleaf Creamery's Chocolate Milk.

This is the Milk

It is pretty much insane. It was so fun to show Jonmark basically the whole state of Idaho, which he had never seen. And it always feels good to be back in Boise. And home. Of course :-)
My birthday was the most low-key of my life, I think. Jonmark gave me a digital frame with all the awesome pics of us over the last year. My parents got me two little leather tape measures I had asked for for measuring mommy tummies, and, um, that was that. I couldn't really decide on a cake that sounded good, so we didn't do one. Next year- I'm making some decisions early. :-) A birthday doesn't happen without a cake. Let's be real.

The rest of the day was crazy. We all pitched in to make the dinner, which we never really had done before. Now, all my mother's children are actually very good cooks, but unless we are asked to help out at home, we're usually not too good at it. Unless my mom sits on the couch. Then Candice gets the ball rolling, and we all get assignments and start going to it. Dad fried a delicious turkey, Candice made stuffing and mashed potatoes, I made sweet potato casserole, and Brad made Sis. Matheson's caramel chocolate cheesecake. mmm...mmm... (And someone made some corn and some canned green beans somewhere along the way....). Oh, and Candice made awesome rolls. (And the next day I did, too. Yup. Me. I finally learned. :-) )

The Rolls that Christin made. 

That night, we did the nativity scene at my parent's house, instead of my Nana's. My mom had made most of the costumes, but Brad & Brea had done the last of the sewing after mom's fall. It took a lot of trust for her to let them do it, but it shouldn't have. They did awesome (p.s. parents, I need a picture of that. I was busy being an angel.)

Afterwards, we gathered everyone together and read "The Polar Express," which almost made me cry just like it always does.  And then all the adult-kids went downstairs to wrap presents and watch elf. Now, the problem with having 3 adult children and 3 adult significant others and 1 adult Christmas guest and 3 small children is that we buy stuff. Sometimes too much. Wrapping took forever. We wrapped while people were told to turn around and look the other way. We ended up with this living room:

I wouldn't say that this much unwrapping made for a better Christmas, but it did make for a lot of chaos and some very excited children and quite a few smiles and surprises. It was crazy, but it was so fun. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Perri Marie

Walking her Turtle Balloon

It appears that if I would like to stop getting "why are you still a dork?" text messages from my dad at 7am, I will have to start blogging about the awesomeness that was my Christmas holiday. As I went through the pictures, I couldn't help but be a little drawn to the ones that have a certain 22 month old in them. She has the best "cheese!!" face in the whole world, as you will see. Behold, little Perri Marie:

Trying to Sneak into the Wheelchair

Eating

Sitting in the doll bed made by a little elf named my dad

Thanksgiving!! (I am such a dork)

 

I'm a dork because I can't believe I almost didn't blog all this.
So this picture isn't actually of Thanksgiving or that weekend. It's from Jonmark's birthday weekend, which was the weekend before. It happens to be my favorite picture of us ever and makes me smile all the time. This is us at True Food Kitchen where once again I was a horrible blogger and didn't take pictures of all our excellent food because I was too excited to eat it. I had amazing sea bass with brussel sprouts and purple potatoes. Jonmark had Salmon with Quinoa. Our desserts were organic non-dairy chocolate pudding (amazing) and ginger lemongrass frozen yogurt (yum!) It's such a fun and healthy fancy place to eat, and it was so fun to celebrate. (And isn't that shirt great of his- yep, that was a birthday present.) :-)

These other pictures, however, are of Thanksgiving weekend. On actual Thanksgiving Day, we hung out at Jonmark's sisters house and watched the Cowboys win and A&M lose. :-( We were there until Midnight when I decided it was time to go shopping. Unfortunately, I don't work nights anymore so my energy level was not what it was when I rocked it in 2009. Nor did I really need anything. BUT! I ended up with a 2" memory foam topper for my bed that was 70% off and it is incredible. I've been sleeping like a baby since I got it. (Not that I ever had trouble sleeping before....) But somewhere between an exhausted Jonmark trying to wheel through the crowd and me traversing the entire mall with a humungous box, I thought, "This is ridiculous. I'm buying everything online from now on." Oh, and Friday and Monday I totally did. But yes, it makes me feel kind of old.
Friday was errand/clean house/sleep/grocery shop day/oil change day/get a great deal on tires at Sears/online shop day.
And Saturday we headed to California. See, Jonmark grew up in Lake Elsinore, which is about an hour away from L.A. And his friend had a car part we needed to pick up nearby. So off we drove!

His friends were so sweet and we stayed and talked to them for a couple hours, and then realized we were only about 30 minutes away from his hometown so we were off again! Lake Elsinore is kind of a crazy little town. There is definitely a lot of character, and, according to Jonmark, a lot of people never leave. Is it the classiest town I've ever been to? Um, no. But in driving around I realized what an awesome place it would be to grow up. There are so many hills and trees and "adventure spots" that it was no question why Jonmark grew to love bikes and dirt bikes and pretty much any other adventure. And I loved the lake. Which was beautiful.
We then did a short little drive over to Temecula, which is a very quaint and a little more "snobby" of a town. (With, of course, better restaurants.) We ate at a place called Texas Lil's, which used to let you cook your own steak, but now, does not. Which we were totally disappointed about, but dinner was good anyways. We then drove around the cute little downtown and stopped in front of a picturesque little fire station to take a picture for Tate (my nephew), where I got pulled over for the 7th time with Jonmark. No, I did not get a ticket. I just had to politely tell the officer that, yes, I planned on driving away if the fire trucks got a call and yes, I was watching closely for other cars that might actually decide to drive down that tiny street. Ridiculous.
Later, we met up from some of his friends from back-in-the-day. It was awesome, to say the least. We met them in a little bar called "The Hideaway," while random people came up to hug him and grill him on his teenage years. (Picking out the Mormons in The Hideaway was about the easiest thing ever. Just find the 2 people wearing some sort of white in a sea of black and neck tattoes.) We listened to a fun little punk band and then headed back to Beaumont to the first friends' house.

Those first friends, Jeremy & Marci, you see, were having a belated Thanksgiving 'cause Jeremy is a cop and had to work on real Thanksgiving. So we went to Target and bought some toothbrushes and I bought some ELF makeup (which is super-duper cheap and I was so proud. Jonmark was less impressed that I thought we needed so much stuff for one night. Anyways, now it's in my gym bag so I can use it all the time.)
So the next day we sat around and ate an incredible Thanksgiving meal and talked about life in Cali as a teenager. Jeremy was actually there for Jonmark's accident so I made him tell me all the details of what he saw. Jeremy was actually the person who loaded up Jonmark's dirtbike into the truck after his accident. (yeah, it almost made me cry a little bit.) So after tons of talking and chilling and eating, we finally got back in the car and drove home.
And basically, it was an awesome weekend that I absolutely loved.

Ripped.

I've been working out lately. Like a lot. It all happened when Bridget alerted me to this picture:

This is our friend who lives in Utah (I think. Ok- so really, we're not that close, but I do know her.) after getting all ripped doing Jamie Eason's LiveFit Trainer. Which of course made me look it up.
This is it: LiveFit Trainer. So far I've done these workouts for about 3 weeks- and have eaten a ton of protein and veggies. Most nights after work, Jonmark and I will meet at the gym and do our workouts together.Some days, I don't think it's made a huge difference, but really, it has. Jonmark always tells me I'm looking so strong and that my back looks totally ripped at the gym. And even Vanie says she can tell a difference. Now, I'm no Jamie Eason yet (even though we are now facebook friends :-)), but I've never worked out quite like this before, and I love that I know what workout I'm doing every single day. And she changes things up so I don't get bored, and every month is a little harder than the last. I'm really excited to do the whole thing. I still need to take my own before and after pictures, but evenings after dinner are not the best time to take them I've decided, even though that's usually when a spare photographer is available. Anyways, it's been fun. And I'll post a picture eventually when I'm done and all crazy ripped. whoo-hoo!

p.s. My favorite part of this so far has been this conversation with Bridget. I had done the leg workout for the first time when I had a 2 hour lunch and had been whining and crying about how much my legs hurt for about 3 days. Bridget called. I told her I was doing this workout.
"Have you done the legs?" she said.
"Yep."
"Can you walk?"
"Um, nope."
"I did it last week. In the morning, I stood up next to my bed and then fell on the ground."
heeeheee. yeah, it's kinda hard. But it's getting easier.

Glendale Glitters

On Saturday, Jonmark and I took a little detour over to Glendale (which is really only like a 15 minute detour from his house) to "Glendale Glitters." Basically it's just downtown all lit up with games and booths and some really terrible dancing (terrible as in well, at least it gives these people a healthy habit). We just kind of strolled around, drank hot chocolate, and watched Home Alone on a screen outside. I, of course, had to confuse the whole concession stand when I asked to have a hot dog cut up in a bowl of chili and cheese instead of a bun. It ended up being the most expensive chili cheese hot dog ever, but it was absolutely delicious. AND!! I had my first caramel apple. I mean, I think I've had one before- maybe at someone's house or something, but I've never bought one at something like this where they are all lined up looking all beautiful and delicious. Jonmark and I shared a beautiful green one with pecans. And it was delicious. And mostly I was super impressed that it didn't even start to fall off the stick. And it kind of was the start to Christmas-time (and now, I really need to decorate...)

What Happens When You Leave Me Alone...

I have a lot of my best nights, I think, when I'm by myself. I also, of course, have some of my worst nights then, too, but that would be another post. (Which likely will not be happening.)
Tonight, I cleaned my room and the kitchen like crazy (to the point where I found a new places for purses and vacuumed). I adjusted the temperature of our water heater so I no longer have to have lukewarm showers. I also changed out my shower curtain liner and hooks-that-have-always-been-terrible, and washed all my workout clothes. Yay! And took out the recycling. Tomorrow I need to call the apartment office and complain that we need another recycle bin. It is always, always full.
Tomorrow night is Jonmark's company's Christmas Party, and I offered to help make dip and peppers. The pepper recipe I found in SELF magazine. And again, I will love Fresh & Easy forever for actually making it easy to find peppadew peppers and cheap goat cheese. They are so delicious!

And lastly, well, before most of that, actually, because I've been starving for 2 days now- I made my first Juevos Rancheros. I don't think I've ever baked an egg before. And even though it kind of looks like it is surrounded by snot, it was completely delicious. (Should I be worried that the avocadoes that I bought TWO MONTHS AGO have shriveled a little but were actually not completely ripe when I sliced them tonight? It freaked me out. I ate them anyways.) I think this is breakfast tomorrow. Good-night!