who ordered the soup...?

so all three of you who read this know i am not from here. no,no, no....not a utah'n at all!! not that i dont love it here, my cabana boy is from here, the mountains are amazing, the snow, the skiing...what more could an outdoor girl ask for? uhhhh...wait, water... there is no water here. no ocean, no deep blue lakes, no rivers...not even a little tiny babbling brook! and dont start in with the "what about pineview?" PINEVIEW?!? please. my driveway back home has more water than pineview, thats not a lake, thats a barbie bath! but this post isnt about utah's lack of water, thats a whole "later in the summer" kind of post. no, this post is about soup. not campbells condensed soup, not progresso healthy choices soup, not even my bff martha stewarts beef and coconut soup with crispy shallots ( recipe to follow, seriously, to DIE for, if you like eating dead animals), no this soup is like no soup i have ever experienced. this soup isnt a comfort food, or a remedy for a cold, no. it doesnt smell warm and toasty, doesnt make a friend feel better, doesnt remind you of chilly afternoons in your mothers cozy kitchen when you were little, no. this soup hovers. it hovers in the air, leaves a film on the windshield, hides the beautiful view of the mountains, even turns the white snow a dingy gray color and worst of all, gunks up my lungs! i cant breath this filth! it makes me cough til my head explodes, and i feel like i have a 350 lb man kneeling on my chest!! (ew....bad mental picture!!) where the hell does this crap come from and how can we get rid of it? it ought to be registered as a weapon of mass destruction! seriously, i have a smokers cough, and i have never even tried smoking!! ughhhhhhhh.......make mine a side salad, no soup for me!!

this is my cabana boy...

meet christopher. he is my cabana boy. besides the fact that he is quite goodlooking, has a rocking body ( no, seriously, you should see him in my leopard print fur bell bottom pants , no shirt, black "guyliner" on his eyes, black nail polish, and a wig, with an electric guitar strapped across his body, rockin, i am telling you) and is funnier than me, these are the things he does every day that make me keep him around:
*he makes me fresh coffee every single morning(starbucks of course!!)
*he pours me a hot bubble bath and lays out my jammies every single night
*he turns down the covers on my side of the bed every single night
*he does ALL my laundry, and i never have to wonder if i will have something clean to wear,
*he gets me fresh ice water and places it by my bedside dresser while i am in my bath each night
*he gasses up my car and keeps it shiny clean without me ever having to say its time,
*he pours me wine and meets me at the door with it if i even HINT that i have had a crappy day
*he tells me i am pretty at LEAST once a day

so, for all you guys who may read my blog, yes, he is making you look bad!! and if you give him any crap about it, i will personally kick your ass, because i think he is just about perfect just the way he is!!

Frost on the pumpkin my ass...

so, i think i may have mentioned a time or two how much i want to be a gardener. no, seriously, its really really important to me. anyway, i found a perfect little spot in our "city" backyard, not too sunny, not too shady, not too in the way of our occasional bacci games, and i turned the soil...by hand...because as I mentioned before, its a city backyard and they dont make barbie sized rototillers. so THAT was a back breaker, but i did it! ok, my cabana boy did it, i just held his beer. then, i went to the local nursery, er...i mean walmart, and bought some tiny little seedlings in the biodegradable cups and started on my quest for fresh vegatable and herb independance!! let me remind all three of you who actually read my blog, that i live in the desert, and keeping these tiny little plants alive in 100 degree heat was no easy task. it required several minutes every single day to tend them and water them and pull the two weeds that could actually grow in this heat. i am telling you, i WORKED at this garden. after about 8 weeks of this exhausting commitment, i began to get teeny tiny little tomatos and green peppers, two here, three there, and every chance I got, i would slice them up and dehydrate them, and put them in the awesome jars i bought at ikea for my pantry!! this was getting fun!! and i noticed as time went on the little veggies were getting bigger and bigger, and more of them were getting ripe at the same time!! YAY!! i might have to become one of those weird people who drag bags of home grown veggies to work and force them on everyone in the office if this keeps up!! it was all going so well...then on wednesday, the EIGHTH of october, with no notice at all, and a good two weeks ahead of schedule, the temperature dropped below freezing! i woke up, threw on my cabana boys slippers and RAN for my garden. as i ran around the corner of the house, i could see my garden come into focus, almost in slow motion...every single plant, drooping hopelessly, no longer bright vibrant green, but now dark, wilted, gasping, lifeless...frozen solid. dead. i just stood there, staring at the dozens of green tomatos clinging to the dead vines, and wondered "why? why? ohhh....why did they have to die so young, and green? and what the crap am i going to do with 25 pounds of green tomatos? no one at work will want these, no one at work usually wants the red ones when crazy gardeners share...but teeny tiny green tomatos?" what to do, what to do? so i jumped online and googled " green tomato recipes" and as it turns out, there are quite a few uses for unripe little gems!! and, to my relief, i am not the first gardener to have her whole crop die before they mature!! i am more than a little horrified, and definately disappointed, but as god is my witness i will garden again!!

Little Tiny Vegetables...

so its late august, and my cabana boy and i have been working feverishly to keep our little garden growning in this desert, i water in the morning before i go to work, he waters in the evening when he gets back home, sometimes we go out together and water again...just for good measure. the poor little plants are breathing heavily and gasping for air...oh wait, thats jack, our black lab. anyway, its so damn hot here that even the weeds dont grow. seriously, i have only had to pull three weeds all season! i was just about to give up on my garden and walk right into oncoming traffic (i really really REALLY want to be a gardener!!) when voilah!! (is that spelled right?) much to my suprise, i had little tiny tomatos and peppers to pick!! YAY!! my very first harvest....just the right size for a barbie salad bar. now where did i put all of those barbies??

the beginning of individuality

its mid-august, and we are still in the nasty dawg-breath days of summer down here in the valley, but up in the gorgous mountains that surround us on all sides here in the high desert of utah...the nights are getting chilly, and the trees are finally starting to evolve into individuals.

my favorite time of year has always been the one thats just out of my reach, the one thats not quite here yet. in winter, its spring; fresh warm air through newly opened windows, the budding of leaves, the promise of colorful flowers to decorate our earth, the warm spring sun on my winter chilled skin...in spring, its summer: the lazy afternoons spent sitting in the shade, sipping lemonade and reading a book, the parades, barbeques and picnics, and summer vacations. by the end of summer, i look forward to autumn's cold refreshing wind, the smell of wood smoke and apple cinamon tarts baking in the oven, and the changing of the colors, when the thousands of trees become one next to another next to another, instead of a solitary mass of green! one dark green evergreen next to a light green maple, next to a silver green aspen...and then yellow, orange and red! each tree a mighty statement of individuality and yet part of a bigger force. the forrest. is there anything on this planet more amazing or more beautiful?

here are some pictures i took of our outing yesterday in the beautiful big cottonwood canyon, where the change is beginning to happen!!

i'm sorry, what did you just call me?

so i live in utah, and because i am am a gypsy, born to gypsies, i can be happy anywhere....for a certain amount of time. so life keeps me moving onward, and for now, i find myself in utah, for the second time in my life. how did i get here? again? well, theres the story we tell everyone, and the REAL story. the real story has alot to do with it being my turn to finally find true love and the safety, sanity and happiness that being with someone who is actually good, and sweet, and emotionally available, and not afraid to commit, and,oh yes, be FAITHFUL!! but, as with every happily ever after story, theres always something silly to still complain about. for me, its this goofy language that these crazy "utahens" all speak. seriously, i keep joking that i am going to write a book, but, i dont think i can wait til i have time to do that, so i decided to try a little of it out on any of you who read my blog. here goes....

the format i will use is this: the utah pronunciation, the actual word, then i will use it in a sentance. this should be fun...
pell ell - pale ale " i like this pell ell better than corona.
hunnert -hundred " i told you a hunnert times, NO!!"
cumferble -comfortable " these shoes are so cumferble!!"
sell -sale "i am having a yard sell tomorrow."
dill- deal "i got a great dill on these shoes!!"
mouw-en - mountain "the mouw-en is on fire!!"
wount- wouldn't " i wount have worn that to a wedding!!"
lay-en - Layton " i live in lay-en"
tore- tour " we are going on a tore of Alaska!!"
shore -sure " i'm not shore if i can go with you."
thishear -this year " i am going to Hawaii thishear."
lashear -last year " this is my lashear of school!!"

ok, enough cappin on these crazy "utahens"...but you see what i mean, right?? its hard to translate and listen to what they are trying to say at the same time...someone please just slap me if i ever start to talk like them!! oh my heck!!

Thirty sixteen

so... the alarm went off this morning as usual, and i hit the snooze button for the 11th time, as usual, and i really didnt want to get up and go to work, AS USUAL, and everything else was feeling the same "as usual", until BAM!! a tiny little lovenote stuck to my side of the bed from my cabana boy turned the whole day upsidedown. it said simply: "happy birthday babe". what the...??? awwwwwww crap! i'm another year older. damn it!! now what? 29 isnt believable anymore, and everyone is on to me by now anyway!! but wait a minute.., my sister, uhhhh- i mean, my daughter, sarah has the cutest way of refering her fast approaching big 3-0 as her twenty tenth birthday, so i decided, hey! if she can turn twenty ten in three years, why cant i be thirty-sixteen today? so thats it, i'm thirty sixteen....anyone got a problem with that? take it up with my cabana boy, he's got my back....wayyyyy back....