Day on the Quad

There is nothing that draws college students to a location faster, and in greater droves, than the promise of free stuff, in particular free food. Such was my day.

Yesterday was "Day on the Quad" here at USU. That means that all of the clubs, many academic departments, recruitment departments, and several vendors all set up tables on the quad, and vie for students attention. Usually they gain that attention by promising free stuff. You can get anything from candy, to bags, to free aggie ice cream, and free chick-fil-a sandwiches. It's pretty amazing.

I think there were about 150 or so tables this year. I would have loved to have wandered around and see all of them, but I was a little busy running one. That's right, I, Melissa Lindsay, am actually involved in an extracurricular. Amazing right? Well, not really. It is French Club.

We had an awesome set up. We had an awning, an absolutely fabulous sign, and a great look.

The fiancé of one of our officer's made this fabulous sign. Our theme this year is Jaser (mingle), Grignoter (eat), S'Amuser (enjoy).

Everything was going great...for about 15 minutes. Then the wind picked up. Our sign was getting blown and torn, so we had to take that down. Then the wind was blowing in such strong gusts that we didn't feel comfortable leaving a borrowed awning up, so we took that down too.

People were not quite sure who we were, but we still attracted a decent amount of people. Of course that might be because of what we were offering. French Bread and Nutella, and Babybell or Laughing Cow cheese. Pretty appealing, particularly around lunch time.

We had a great support from the club officers to run the booth. This is a picture of Kyle (whose awesome fiancé made our sign!), Me, and Aaron after our booth was set up.

In case you are wondering what I have above my lip, that was our other fun game that eventually had to come down because of the wind. We had "Pin the mustache on the Frenchie." His name was Jean Claude, and he was another awesome creation of Bethany. We had chocolates as a prize for that.

We worked really hard, but laughed and had a lot of fun, and I think we got a lot of good interest in the club this year. We're hoping at least.

I did really well too. I was outside from 9:30 am until 3:15 pm, and I stayed on top of my sunblock the whole time. I only got one minor burn on my nose.

All in all, it was a good day. (But I'm really glad to not have to do this again next fall, it was a very busy, good day!)

Monthly Cooking Project (1st attempt)

Have you ever had one of those days, where you just don't want to cook? Maybe it's too hot, and you just don't feel like heating up the house more? Maybe you've been gone all day, and just want something quick? Or maybe you're just like me, and don't even think about what you're going to eat, until you're actually hungry, and at that point you just want food, and you want it NOW? Maybe it's just me, but I fall into all of these categories, all the time. On top of that my mother has just gotten sick of cooking, after many years of trying to plan dinner menus.

Basically our eating habits have been going down fast, and we both know we need to be eating better. My mother has been working hard to be healthier for almost 2 years now, and didn't want all her hard work to go to waste, and I know I've got a lot of crazy schedules, and hard work ahead of me this semester, so we decided to do one big cooking day.

I really do mean BIG cooking day. We tried to make a full month’s worth of meals for the 3 of us all in one day. (Well two if you count our big prep day.)

We spent all day Friday picking out menus, and figuring out what ingredients we needed. I typed out our list, and color-coded it by where we were getting each ingredient. Yes I am that OCD.

We got all that we could Friday afternoon, but saved all of our fresh ingredients for Saturday morning when we headed over to the farmer’s market just minutes from our house.

The rest of the day was spent making several dishes from scratch, putting them into individual portioned size containers, and clean-up.

We had a lot of fun, but we worked hard.

On the left: Apple Bean Bake (basically baked beans with apples, and it is AWESOME!)

On the right: Vegetable Rice Casserole. I'm hoping it's good.

This is our Pinto Bean Mix. We used it for several of the dishes we made, and then divvied up the rest into baggies of one cup portions for later use.

We sautéed up tons of carrots, celery, onion, and green pepper. It's such a basic start to just about any dish, so we put it in several of the things we made, and then portioned it out into baggies. We're hoping we'll have enough left over to use in next months big cook day.

Sweet Potatoes to go with the Meatloaf my mother made for her and my daddy.

My wonderful Vegetarian Chili, and Cornbread muffins! I love this stuff (as do many of my friends) and it is a fabulous meal for me to have on hand.

All of the Casseroles! In the back is a South of the Border Casserole, and Enchilada's with Beef and Beans. In the front is a Zucchini Casserole, Manicotti, and Enchilada's with Beans.

Our day's work! Some of it is in containers of 2 proportions for my mother and daddy, but most are just in individual proportions. Everything is nicely labeled with what it is, and the date.

All stacked in the freezer in the garage. Some of this will go back to Logan with me, but I'm pretty impressed with us! Hopefully this works, and we can keep it up.

Ikea!

Moving is messy. Moving creates chaos. Moving = My worst nightmare!

We just moved in June, and ever since it has been a constant endeavor to get enough storage for all the stuff that actually made the extensive cut from before the move. Enter Ikea.

I had been to Ikea before, and thought it was awesome, but it was never in the budget to redecorate just because I had all of these amazing ideas. With the new house, and the ensuing chaos, we decided to head over there to get ideas of how we could get things back to par.

First and foremost, I lost my dresser. Well, not really. It's still in the house. It was just a sideboard being used as a dresser. In this new house, we actually needed a sideboard, so it got promoted to the dining room, and the search for a new dresser began. We found this great, simple, four drawer dresser in ebony to match my black, grey, and red bedroom. I put it together all by myself, and it took a little time to figure out the pieces, but it came together, and I was quite proud of it.

Next chaos to tackle was the mess of toys. You'd never guess we sent a so many of the toys to DI by the stack of boxes and bags we had, but I promise we eliminated a ton. We had a huge walk in closet in the family room downstairs, so there was a lot to get rid of. I had a lot of fun designing this cool plan of cabinets, and bench.

We put a 40" wide cabinet and a video cabinet to the left of the window. We put a couple of drawers to make the toys easily accessible for little kids with short arms, and toys with lots of little pieces up high, where it requires an adult to get them down.

We put a bookshelf on it's side, and turned it into a really cool bench, and great location for all of the kids books.

On the right of the window, we put a half size image of the cabinet on the left. It gave the last bit of storage needed for all of the toys, and finished the look off well. It gives a perfect built in look to that side of the room. We love it.

One thing you may know, but may need to put into perspective is that all items from ikea come in flat boxes. That means that we had to construct the cabinets, install the doors, construct the drawers, install the tracks, and set the drawers. Also, these cabinets are empty holes. You have to design out each part of it, including how many shelves, drawers, types of drawers, but that means you end up with a unique piece specifically designed to fit your own needs, and I got to do a good portion of the designing. Basically it was a lot of work, and craziness, but I have ikea construction down. You want to know a little secret? I LOVED IT!

After the family room was put together we moved on to my mother's sewing room. She left a beautiful, recently redone sewing room in the old house, so she really wanted something that would function and look nice to compensate for all that she was leaving behind. As we put together the cabinets in the family room, she decided she wanted something similar in her sewing room, but with more drawers, and a great expanse of desk for her sewing machine, embroidery machine, and surger.

We had it all put together, but there was a space between the end of the desk, and the wall. We measured, and thought about another 20" cabinet, but there wasn't quite enough space. I glanced out into the family room, and saw the kids book bench. I took the tape measure out and it was the perfect width. My mother loved the idea, but thought she was done with the room. After a couple of days of walking around saying "it really would be nice." "it really would work so well.", we finally went back to ikea and bought another one. Once we got it together the room felt complete... well, almost.

She found that she loved this drawer unit we used as one of the legs, and now she wants another one to replace a temporary plastic one she has rolled under there, but, for now at least, I think it all looks great.

We're still working on getting pictures hung, and everything in order, but it's really starting to look livable, and not a 2700 sq. ft. storage shed. I have put a lot of work into it, and that always makes me feel accomplished.

Next up... My bathroom. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to not put any drawers in a bathroom? I don't think there will be any ikea in there though, but it is definitely my new favorite furniture store. It's great looking, nice furniture, and you feel a sense of pride when you see all the pieces and know that you put them together yourself.

Mes Belle Livres Français!

As you might have guessed from the name of this blog I'm kind of a Frenchie. I've been taking French almost nonstop since I was in middle school, nearly a decade now, and am studying to become a French Teacher. Needless to say, I love the language, and any chance I get to use it. I particularly love to read in French. I find it easier to grasp concepts and expand my vocabulary without getting lost on accents or sounds.

I started reading in French with The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. For family scripture study at night we each had copies of The Book of Mormon in our own language of choice. I had my French Le Livre De Mormon, my mother had her Spanish El Libro De Mormón, and my daddy had his Tongan Ko e Tohi 'a Molomoná. We would each read 2 verses in our language, then try to translate them into English. We also had an English version that got passed around, and someone else would read the two verses we had just translated out loud, to see how we had done, and what we learned from it.

Now I read my French Book of Mormon out loud each night for personal scripture study. It's a lot of fun, and has been a huge help in getting the flow of the language down.

I started the rest of my tiny (for now) French book collection while on my study abroad in France. We went in this awesome book store in the mall in Annecy, where I lived, and I had about 5 books in my hand, before I finally settled on just one. (I had way too much luggage that was heavy, and couldn't afford to have any more than the one book.) I decided on a collection, so that I didn't feel too cheated, and bought one of my favorite series. I bought The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis ou Le Monde de Narnia en Français. So really I bought 7 books, I just justified it, because its bound into a single volume.

Those were the only two books I had in French for a while, besides textbooks, but then this summer I have been doing an independent readings class, taking a few simple books, and creating lesson plans on how to use them to teach a high school French class. It's a fascinating class, and going to be a huge help when I am a high school French teacher, but in the meantime I'm mostly excited that it's helping to add a few more books to my French Library.

The first one is just a tiny little one, about the size of my hand called Champlain au Canada: Les Aventures d'un Gentilhomme Explorateur. It's a little story book about some of the first French explorers and habitants of Canada. It's a cute little book to have, and a fairly easy level of reading. I like it.

The second one, and the one I am most excited to have though, is Harry Potter à l'Ecole des Sorciers aka Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. It's not really easy, but it's not too difficult, and it has been the most fun to read. It's fun to see things I loved in the English version, like the sorting hat song, and the poem outside Gringots translated into French. They obviously can't do direct translation, so to me it's interesting to see what meanings they take, and how they find a French rhyming sequence to somewhat mirror that of the original. I'm currently working on a lesson plan using the Hogwarts Express to teach Train vocabulary. It's totally cool, and new, and a lot of work, but fun.

I'm sure my French Library will grow as I continue on, but I'm proud of my collection, small as it may be. It makes me smile, and gives me an excuse to curl up with a good book. Hey, I'm practicing my French! It counts right?

Girly Vacation!

After several busy and stressful months full of school, work, school work, moving, setting up a new house, and life in general a major vacation was in order. After a bit of confusion and a subsequent upgraded rental we were on our way to a fabulous girls vacay! I love girl getaways! My mother and I are down in St. George for the week, and yesterday and today my sister and her two little girls and their cousin came to join us. We have had so much fun. Last night all 6 of us girlies went to see The Little Mermaid at Tuachan down here. It was an amazing production and the girls talked about it non stop for about 15 minutes after the show. I'm sure their monologues would have continued had they not fallen asleep. One of them may have drifted off mid sentence, but after they started repeating themselves I half tuned them out so I can't be certain. It was midnight, and they're only 7 and 8, so you can't really blame them.

Today we took them hiking up in Snow Canyon. We took them on a couple of fun, short hikes and just laughed and had a good time.

We especially loved coming upon a natural cutout in the rock, perfect for poking heads through for pictures.

Kelsea and Chloe

Me

Chloe being Chloe

Hallie

Grandma and Chloe

Silly Grandma!

Kelsea trying to give a Mona Lisa smile. Maybe.

Hallie and Me

After we all got really hot and tired we came back to the condo for a sandwich and a swim. The girls had a fabulous time splashing around and cooling off. I cooled off for a while. Now I'm burning up. Curse my red hair and fair skin complexion.

Before they left we had a quiet break curled up on the couch. We all snuggled together and while Chloe brushed my hair, I read them an old favorite of mine. It was the first in the series and each of the girls took one of my books with them to read on their way home. I am glad that they enjoyed it as much as I did, and hope to be able to share more of that with them in the coming months and years.