Fireflies

Yesterday I found out that a friend of mine is going to go on a mission. I am so excited for her! She asked me all sorts of questions about being a missionary, which I gladly answered. Since that conversation I have been homesick for Brazil, and oddly enough for a strange little insect I was introduced to while I was there – Fireflies!

Its not that I had never heard of fireflies (or lightning bugs) before, but I had never personally seen them until I was in my last area in Southern Brazil. I will always remember that spring night when the sun went down, and all the sudden small flickers of light began to appear. I started giggling like a little girl! I don’t know if I have ever seen anything so beautiful in my entire life. Huge fields filled with hundreds of tiny twinkling bugs, like stars in the sky.

Fireflies became a simple joy for me during my time in that area. I anticipated the sun setting each night, knowing that as soon as the sun was gone they would appear. Almost every night as we walked home I would stop and stand in front of a large field, just to stare and marvel at the perfection of God’s creations.

There was a family who discovered my obsession with fireflies. The 12 year old boy in the family went out one night and filled up a jar with fireflies, which he gave to me so that I could use them as a nightlight (have I mentioned how incredible the people of Brazil are?) I fell asleep that night staring at the blinking bugs.

Sadly, there was no way for me to take a picture of my flickering friends. But the image is forever captured in my mind and my heart. The smell of the humid, spring air, the feeling as the heat of day slips into the cool of night, and the peace and stillness as the fireflies begin to appear, one by one.

Saudades.

TAG!

7 Random Facts about Me!

1. I have a freckle in my left eye.

2. I can say my ABC’s backwards in less than 5 seconds.

3. I eat all of the cashews and almonds from mixed nuts and leave the rest (much to my parents dismay).

4. I once stood in two countries at the same time.

5. I am fluent in English, Portuguese, and Horse Latin :) (and learning Spanish too!)

6. When I put gas in the car I have to put in an exact dollar amount (for example, it has to be $25.00 and not $24.87) When I go over a couple of cents it drives me nuts!

7. I was once in the worlds biggest pillow fight. We were even on Guinness’s records for a whole week before another group stole the title!

I tag Emily, Katie and Suzette!

Sleep Tight . . .

So I have a problem. I can’t seem to get enough sleep. It doesn’t matter what time I fall into bed at night, I am asleep within 5 minutes, and when my alarm goes off I am still tired. I always have mints in my backpack to suck on during classes to help stay awake, but often times I still find myself doing the head-bobbing thing (much to the amusement of those sitting around me, I am sure!) It took me forever to read the last Harry Potter because every time I sat down to read I would fall asleep. And since I have been home I have fallen into the habit of falling asleep during movies. It’s so frustrating, because these are movies that I have wanted to see for a really long time and yet I just sleep through a good chunk of them (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Stardust and Cars just to name a few) Last night I fell asleep during Night and the Museum, and now I am WAY confused about the whole storyline! I have only stayed awake during one movie since returning, and that was quite the battle! And before I served a mission I almost always had very vivid and very real dreams. 5-6 nights of the week I would be able to remember what I had dreamed the night before. Now I seem to dream a lot less, and they are generally not coherent even if I can remember them! What is going on here?!? Anyone else struggle with constantly drooping eyes?

Soups On!

Last week when I was at the Olive Garden I fell in love with their Zuppa soup. I enjoyed it so much that the next day I started searching for the recipe on the Internet. I found several recipes and lots of reviews that claimed that the soup turned out just like the Olive Gardens. I was way excited! I made it today for a special President’s Day Family Night that we had. I doubled the recipe and it made A TON of soup! One batch would have made enough to feed all seven of us, but who complains about leftover soup? It just gets better! Here is the recipe that I used. (this was the recipe BEFORE I doubled it)

Ingredients:

• 1 pound bulk mild Italian Sausage
• ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 4 slices bacon, cut into ½ inch pieces
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 5 chicken bullion cubes
• 10 cups water
• 6 potatoes, thinly sliced
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 head chopped kale

1. Cook the Italian sausage and red pepper flakes in a large pot over medium heat until crumbly and cooked through. Remove from pot and refrigerate while preparing the rest of the soup.

2. Using the same pot, cook bacon until crispy. Add onions and garlic and cook until translucent.

3. Add the bullion cubes and water to the pot. Bring to a boil. Add potato slices. Turn down heat and let simmer until the potatoes are tender. This should take about 20 minutes.

4. Mix in heavy cream and sausage and heat through. Mix in kale and let boil for five minutes.

Serve with a good bread. ENJOY!

I will definitely make this soup again, it was awesome! I don’t know if it is identical to Olive Gardens, but it is really close! Here are some things that I would recommend doing if you ever decide to try this recipe:

-The original recipe calls for 1 ½ teaspoons of crushed red pepper. I started with ½ teaspoon, and found it to be plenty! (Seriously, 1 ½ would be way to much!) Start low and then go up.

-If you don’t get all of the sausage grease off before adding it back into the soup, the grease all floats to the top and makes the soup kind of pink. Next time I will set the sausage to drain on top of a stack of paper towels so it absorbs the fat.

-I think next time I will use half and half instead of heavy cream just to be a bit healthier, and I don’t think it will make much of a difference.

-Don’t overcook the potatoes, they will fall apart!

-The recipe doesnt include salt, but depending on the bacon and bullion cubes that you use, you may need to add some. I added about 1/2 teaspoon per batch about the same time that I added in the water and bullion.

-If there is not fresh kale available you can use fresh spinach (or so I have heard!) but I really LOVE the fresh kale in this! It was my first time ever using kale, and it was actually really easy to find.


Let me know if you ever decide to try the recipe out. I would highly recommend it!

Valentines Day

I just LOVE valentines day! Seriously, love it. I am not even dating anyone right now, so I didn’t have a valentine this year, but I like any excuse to celebrate! This Valentines Day was really fun! My siblings and parents decided that eating at a nice restaurant on Valentines Day stinks, because its super crowded and they rush you in and rush you out, so you don’t even get to enjoy it (plus its really expensive). So this year we decided to do a nice dinner at home with everyone bringing something so that no one got stuck doing all the work. (valentine's day with the family, might not seem to romantic or exciting, but it was awesome!)

My mom was in charge of the Lasagna, Lacey made a great salad, and my SIL (Liz) made her Focaccia bread with an alfredo dipping sauce. Yum, yum, yum, YUM!

I was on desert duty, so I brought a chocolate cheesecake with a powdered sugar heart on top! I love cheesecake of any kind, and this is definitely going on my list of favorites. I found it on the kraft webpage. It was pretty simple to make (as far as cheesecakes go), and turned out really smooth and decadent. It also makes 16 servings! I will be making this one again!

So the dinner was just as good (if not better) than what we would have had in a restaurant. And it was super cheap too!

We then watched “No Reservations”. This movie is a kind of cheesy chic flick, but I really enjoyed it! It was cute, and clean, and a fun romance story. Perfect for Valentines Day! It is more of just a feel good movie; there really isn’t much depth to it, So I give it 7 stars. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth seeing!

The night ended with me trying to find my keys and realizing that I had locked them in my car (this was the first time in my life that I have done that!) Beyond that, the day was awesome!

Hope you all had a great Valentines Day!

I may just be the lamest person ever . . .

Last night I went with a friend to the Olive Garden restaurant. Really, I have never been impressed with the food at the Olive Garden, except for the soup, salad and breadsticks, which I totally love and am addicted to. Last night I decided to order the Zuppa (my dear sister in law’s favorite) and absolutely LOVED it! I got on the internet today searching for a recipe, which I found, and it seems super easy! I will let you know how it is once I have tried it.

This morning I fell on the ice for the first time since being home (actually, the fact that I have made it this long without falling is quite an accomplishment! I tend to be a bit on the klutzy side). However it won’t go down in history as one of my best falls ever (thank goodness!). I was just starting to walk up to campus, so there wasn’t really a lot of people around. I landed on one knee with the other extended straight out in front of me (points for style!) making it super easy to stand quickly up, and walk away acting like nothing had happened. My angels had to have been close by, I didn’t slide down the rest of the hill (which was all covered in ice) which would have been super embarrassing, there were no cute boys close by (at least none that I saw) and I only got a small cut on my left palm with no bruises at all! What a blessing!

So I really like personality quizzes, so when I saw one that said “What Flavor of Ice Cream Are You?” I just had to try it out! It was a fairly quick and simple quiz, and I had my results back with in seconds and (drum roll please) I am . . . vanilla. Yes. That is right. Vanilla. Aw man! Not cookie dough, or mint chocolate chip, but VANILLA! I always try to be brutally honest when I take these quizzes, but being told that I am a “brown” person a few days ago in a color quiz, and now finding out that I am a “vanilla” person has left me feeling like the most boring person in the world! But I do realize that the good thing about vanilla is that it can go well with any other flavor. Plus, if my “brown” was actually suppose to be a brownie that I could put with the vanilla ice cream, then I just need to find some hot fudge in my life and I am good to go!

Funny, Funny!

The first time I saw this cartoon I laughed so hard! I don’t know, maybe I have a strange sense of humor. But I hope that you enjoy this just as much as I did (remembering that you don't have the worst job in the world)! Have a great day and SMILE!