a little yin with our yang

Bear with me, we have a lot of information to cover today. First, and perhaps most critical, is the following announcement:

WE ARE OUT OF SALSA.

It's bound to happen when you eat salsa for every meal.

This started as MY bowl of salsa, by the way.

And then Chancho joined in. Yes, he IS sitting on the table. I also let him run in the street and listen to alternative music. I'm not a very good mom. Fortunately, they don't require licensing. And by "they" I mean the same people who require a license for driving trucks and getting married.

I'm trying to get the hankering for salsa out of my system before DJ comes home from Colorado. The last time he left me alone I ate a quart of salsa single-mouthedly in two days. He came home at two in the morning, crawled into bed, sniffed, and said, "What's that SMELL?!" (Did you know that I sleep with my mouth open? I do. I hate it, especially since I heard that statistic about how many spiders the average person eats during sleep in their lifetime.)

I want to share the recipe, but I feel like I should get permission from my cousin-in-law, Blake, who invented it. Ah, what the hey! He lives in Nevada, like he would drive all the way up here to pick a fight about recipe rights. Even if he did, he could never withstand my kung fu salsa breath. Here it is:

Blake's Salsa
2 cans Mexican-style stewed tomatoes
4 green onions
2 cloves garlic
1/2 a bunch of cilantro
1 serrano chile
1 jalapeno
Put everything in a blender, push the button, and vee-oh-lay! Salsa!

Because we need a little yin with our yang, I'm still pumping my family full of green smoothies. My mom visited yesterday and was so completely weirded out by them that she took pictures. Lots of pictures.




DJ just called and said that he might come home this week. I really miss him and his "I don't give a crap about social norms" attitude.

The funny thing about DJ is that, without consulting me, he places bids at silent auctions for sports memorabilia that I don't even care about and then uses my cell phone as the contact number. AND THEN HE WINS. And then when I ask him about it, he says "I didn't think I'd win!" like it's a prize or something. Wait...that isn't funny at all. I gotta get that boy home.

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Salsaaaah!

Things are weird these days. DJ is still in Colorado. He'll probably be there for another couple of weeks. (Dear Potential Prowlers or Rapists, I sleep with a shotgun, my cell phone, and a really heavy flashlight. Plus, I have disarmingly potent salsa breath. Think again. Sincerely, Elise)

On the bright side, this weekend I found 22 Babysitter's Club books in MINT CONDITION at a yard sale. When I was nine I wanted to be Claudia Kishi. I wanted it all: the rad clothes, the junk food stashed around the bedroom, the Japanese heritage. To this day I dream of being Asian. I'm excited to share this important part of my childhood with my daughters.

We've been eating a lot of salsa these days.

I got this recipe from my sister-in-law, who got the recipe from my husband's cousin, Blake. It is delectable. This salsa has RUINED ME for every other salsa. I wake up thinking about it. Tess loves it, too. I give her a little bowl with a little pile of tortilla chips. She dips her chip, licks it off, her eyes water, she goes "aaaaah!" and then repeats the process. With the same chip.

And finally, lest you think I only take pictures of inanimate objects:

This is Tess's first taste of I Can't Believe They're Not Chicharrones (my in-laws got these from the Latin grocery store and brought them to a family function). She used the same technique with the fake chicharrones as she uses with the salsa. I'm thinking Tess inherited a little something from her Mexican great-grandma.

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NOT a post about what's wrong with Barbies...

...today we're focusing on the positive. Unfortunately, Luckily, I spent an inordinate amount of time in the Barbie aisle this weekend. These are my findings.

Rock Hudson.


There would be a Rock Hudson Barbie. I suspect that when the last of the StuffMart employees go home, little Rock Hudson sneaks out of his box to go hang out with all of the Princess Charm School Ken dolls. Or this guy....

Sweet Talkin' Ultimate Boyfriend Ken:


Where do I even start? "YOU make me talk!" Yeah, that's pretty much how it works. "Record your voice - I say it back in mine!" If only it were so easy. "TRY ME" Bah ha ha ha ha!

It appears that the Mattel people are making strides toward more lifelike dolls. Next I'd like to see "Fourth C-section Barbie" and "Snores Super Loud Ken."

The reason I spent so much time in the Barbie aisle is because Olivia turned six on Saturday. She wanted a Barbie cake. How do you make a Barbie cake? Make a pink cake, slap a Barbie on it, ta-flipping-da! Barbie cake!



I sure love my Livie Livie Lou Fuss Fuss....


Obviously. I can't think of many people in this world for whom I would spend an afternoon in the Barbie aisle.

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poods and poods of free time...

Sorry.  'Gleed' and 'Ge' are not acceptable words.

Sorry.  'Gloo' is not an acceptable word.

Sorry.  'Glod' and 'Oc' and 'Hd' are not acceptable words.

(By now you've gotta be dying to know what word I finally played, huh?  Wait for it... Are you sitting down?  Have you recently used the ladies room?  Because this is going to be really funny....)

Pood.

Yeah.  Who knew it was even a real word?  Would you care to know the definition?  According to Merriam-Webster, it is "a Russian unit of weight equal to about 36.11 pounds (16.38 kilograms)."  Not the definition I would've guessed.  Anyway, from now on when the doctor or the driver's license people ask me my weight, I'm giving it to them in poods.  Maybe with a Russian accent.  Maybe not, depending on my mood.  Sometimes I just don't have it in me to pull off a good Russian accent.

In case it wasn't disgustingly obvious, I've got time on my hands these days.  Now that I only have two children at home during the day I don't know what to do with all of these spare hours at my disposal.  Here's a sample of what I've done thus far:  organized the anarchy that was my books/game closet, gotten my pood kicked at Words With Friends, cleaned every cranny and nook in my house, shopped at Costco, reviewed the alphabet with Chancho, baked bread, took pictures of the bread, Photoshopped the bread picture, and then posted the bread picture on Facebook to remind my husband that I would like him to come home from Colorado eventually:

Unfortunately, DJ is never on Facebook.  I bet he'll never come home.  At least, it feels that way.

Angel Hair With Marinara Sauce

Ugh. Is anyone else exhausted? This first week of school is making me long for summer. We did the usual things to prepare for school. We bought school supplies--crayons, dry erase markers, Purell, pencils, tomato paste. Aww yeah...



In an effort to de-Grinchify my daughters' hair I applied a small can of Great Value tomato paste to their hair with a barbecue brush. I didn't spring for the name brand paste. Long story short, it removed the green and totally ruined my appetite for Italian food.

Macey and Olivia love school. UGH. I'm slowly coming to terms with the beginning of the school year. Chancho and his cousin Diego are super excited about it. Here they are, celebrating in the school parking lot.

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Wherein I am liberal with the colons:

I hope you're sitting down:



I KNOW. I bet you've never seen such a huge pot of Ramen. I think it was ten bricks. I'm sure you're thoroughly impressed and are probably wondering why anyone would want to, I mean NEED to, boil up such a gigantic cauldron of noodles. Well, we've had company. And that's *just* how classy I am.

I know you're tripping all over yourselves to come for a visit now. Well. The fun doesn't stop there. While we were in Dallas, my hometown acquired one of these...




In case you were wondering, it doesn't do that thing like on Mary Poppins where you can go bounding off into the horizon with Dick Van Dyke. What a disappointment. Do any of my St. George friends know if this carousel is a permanent fixture? Or is it going to disappear mysteriously like Zuka Juice did?

Here's an unrelated question, but those of you who are my friends on Facebook will know from whence this thinking has sprung: If you feel that our government has kinda gotten too big for its britches and want to pare down the crazy spending and programs and stuff, where would you start? Which program would you cut first? For real. I'm curious. If you like having a large government which spends more than it earns, I don't want to know what you think here. Sorry. Maybe you can comment on the Ramen thing.

One last thought. Tonight I went to a spin class with my sister-in-law Sheree (before you get all "Ooo, Elise is all healthy and goes to the gym and likes to rub it in on her blog and stuff" know this: I am about to eat at least six large chocolate chip cookies. And it's 10:46 PM) and my sister Monna had an awesome idea: Why aren't we harnessing all of the power generated by the world's stationary bicycle exercise classes? You know, like on Gilligan's Island? At the very least, we could use it to power the air conditioner: like the faster you pedal, the harder the A/C blows. It would be inspiring. What do you think? I'm no scientist, but I think Monna's onto something here.

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pictures AND 1000 words

Busy week. I feel like life has taken a bite of me and spit me back out, but in a good way. We left Dallas last Thursday and spent the night in lovely Amarillo.



We ate some continental breakfast.



On Saturday my little Chancho turned four, which was weird because his third birthday was only like four months ago.



On Sunday my husband's little brother gave his farewell talk in church. His name is Seth. Don't get him started about why he's only 5'8" and his older brothers are both 6'3". He will be sharing the gospel with the lucky people of Nairobi, Kenya beginning next week. Let's hope he doesn't get malaria. Here are all of my in-laws celebrating his departure:



Tuesday was mine and DJ's eighth anniversary. Besides making gluttons of ourselves over yellow curry and mango sticky rice, DJ had the idea to spend the evening reminiscencing about our missions while sipping sparkling cider, Mormon-style. He's *so* romantic. His sisters say he's read too much Stephenie Meyer.

For those of you who didn't know, DJ and I dated for a while before we both left for our missions. He was in the MTC learning Spanish and preparing to leave for Boston when I got my call to serve in New Hampshire. We wrote to each other every week of our missions (with the exception of one dark period when we didn't write to eachother for a month. DJ says those weeks were the only weeks of his entire mission that he felt any homesickness...*sigh*).

Anyway, every preparation day for two long years I would sprint to our mailbox in anticipation of one of these:

My companions must have hated me. DJ's preparation day was two days after mine--just enough time for my letters to get to him so that he could write me back.

And BOY--were my letters HILARIOUS! Even back then I (thought I) was funny! I bet you didn't know this, but I'm also an artist. Here's Sister Freitas and me getting mugged in the ghetto:

Note our purses on the ground. I loomed over Sister Freitas by at least twelve inches. We were a sight to behold. I think our mission president paired us up because of how ridiculous we looked standing next to eachother. We never did get mugged, which is a bummer. What a funny story that would've made.

On Wednesday DJ and I took the children to Sand Hollow for a dip:


These eight years have been good to us, I'd say.

Now it's Thursday again. DJ has left for Colorado for the next month. I finally unpacked our suitcases and washed our laundry. And found the two-month-old sippy cup of milk in the toy box.  Let's hope next week is just as awesome.

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