playtime and chocolate waffles

aaron spent a lot of last saturday reading about random financial things on the internet. due to the hours of time spent staring at a computer screen combined with his ever guilty conscience that he isn't doing everything he should be with his life, both in the immediate and long-term sense, he went bonkers for about 20 minutes. he had been asking me to "play" all afternoon, and i told him if he figured out something to "play" to let me know and i would do it. the only thing he really vocalized was playing a card or board game. i guess i'm a terrible wife who doesn't keep her promises because i shot that idea down by saying that i didn't know where the games were at my grandparents house (which was where we were, doing our laundry). and it's not like i could have asked or anything...i know i sound terrible, but i'll make up for it, just keep reading.

so then aaron imploded, sat in the laundry room with his head on a pile of clean shirts, and stared out the window. we ate beef stew with my grandparents, which had been crock-potting for several hours (my grandparents weren't crock-potting...the stew was). then my grandma and i ate some ice cream and the men turned their noses down to such a silly dairy dessert. seriously, what is it about ice cream that men can turn down and women can't resist? i think ice cream beats just about anything else on my list of tasty treats.

then we got in the car to go home. this is where i repented for my former misdeeds. i told aaron to take a detour, go down the hill and around the corner, where we ended up at a park. it was kind of chilly out, we only had t-shirts on, but we got out and ran to the playground. we swang/swung/swinged for a while, aaron jumping off at the top of his highest swing, me jumping off at the low point of the curve so that i pretty much just walked right off. we had some handstand competitions. i think i actually held my handstand for just shy of 3 whole seconds! we ran through the playground and slid down all the slides in under 15 seconds, then we talked to each other through those silly "telephone" poles that go under the ground and come out in triangular speakers. we secretly told each other it was cold and we should go.

isn't it kind of funny that children learn so much from "play", and yet we "mature adults" play so little? i guess that proves our superiority to children. we don't need play. we already know everything that play has to offer. (i hope everyone--or should i say anyone--reading this understands my sarcasm in those last sentences.) one time aaron and i were "playing" on a playground and a father came with his two children. he kicked a soccer ball around with his son and told his little daughter to go play on the playground. when he finally gave in to her requests for him to come push her on the swings, he was on his phone texting while he pushed her. he missed a few swings, obviously, and what the heck! play, man! get on the slide with your kid. i could be a total hypocrite. i have no idea, and i have no kids.

on a completely different note from play, but on a very common note for this blog, i have some more observations about aaron's eating habits. sometimes, right when he wakes up, he'll walk into the kitchen and if there happens to be a chocolatey treat laying around, he will have more desire to eat it then any other time of the day. i have seen him eat cookies and chocolate cake while he is still basically half asleep. yet, this morning, when i asked him if he would want waffles for breakfast, he said yes, but with the tone that he was only doing it because he suspected that that is what i wanted. i finally got him to admit, in almost these exact words, that waffles are good, but if they were chocolate they would be better. so, i made him chocolate waffles.

when i asked him to get the syrup out of the fridge, he also grabbed the chocolate syrup. chocolate waffles weren't enough?

i have realized that since aaron doesn't write on this blog and i do, most everything is about aaron and food. yet, i believe you--the potential reader--may in fact be geting a greater look into myself as well by reading what i write. but if anyone wants to know a little more straightforwardly about my life, i'll try to give a few highlights here:

--i was in moscow, idaho for a dance festival last week. i took lots of amazing classes, a few weird ones, saw some amazing dances from students at other universities, and plenty of weird ones, and got to perform a group piece and my solo piece at the festival.

--i am plowing my way through my classes, with the end in sight. only 18 or some days of classes left! i have decided to go to graduation, at least to the ceremony where i walk across the stage and take some awkward pictures holding my diploma.

--if you have forgotten what i look like, here is a picture.

i have been holding spoons a lot lately. and pointing them at people as if holding a magic wand. i didn't notice there was hair in my mouth until aaron showed me the picture. he said there is always hair in my mouth.

sweet sixteen

aaron isn't really into sports, and neither am i, but BYU in the sweet sixteen? we got pretty excited about that. aaron said all he wanted to do was not think about school and watch the game. and so we did just that.

unfortunately, though we have a large hd-tv, it doesn't actually get any tv. so we watched on a small computer.

while i was in the kitchen heating up some leftovers, all i heard coming from aaron in the other room was either: "noooooo jimmer!" or "yes jimmer!" i think there was more of the no jimmer, sadly.

watching the second half, aaron kept being worried about jimmer--his hurting calf and the boo-boo on his chin. it was a sad final game for him. but, he did give us a few moments of excitement.

we couldn't watch the last 2 minutes of overtime, though. it was too sad.

rare words

last night, sometime around 10:00 p.m., as we were in bed, aaron spoke some rare words. he said he was hungry.

aaron barely ever expresses desires to eat food, which is quite the opposite of myself. you can imagine the excitement that flittered into my heart upon hearing these words, and the dreams that i had that perhaps this once, aaron might eat in excess, as i so often do. suddenly, my sleepiness vanished and my sole intent was to get him out of bed and eating a bowl of honey nut cheerios.

after telling him, for about 10 minutes, to leave the warmth and coziness of the bed, venture through the cold, darkness in his underwear, and go eat a bowl of honey nut cheerios, i started sensing, from the depths of my bowels, an intense and insatiable craving for honey nut cheerios. aaron kept saying he didn't even want any cereal, but now i kept saying that i did. somehow, the roles had switched. talking about cheerios so much, and trying to get someone else to eat them actually sparked in me my own craving for cheerios. and then, the roles switched again, when aaron finally came to agreement within himself and i decided that it was silly to eat cheerios at 10:30 at night. it didn't take long, probably a matter of seconds, in fact, for me to switch back over and initiate the trek to the kitchen.

aaron didn't follow at first, but as soon as the sound of those cheerios hitting the bowl was heard, he came dragging himself into the kitchen, like a hungry mole blinded by the light. we both poured ourselves hefty bowls of cheerios, and then proceeded back to the warmth of our bed, where we scarfed our cereal snack.

after all the milk was gone, we snuggled back up for a good sleep with stomaches full. or so i thought. to my surprise, only a few minutes later, these words (or words almost similar to these) came our of aaron's mouth: "i'm so hungry i could go open a can of tuna and eat it raw and then scarf down three whoppers and still be hungry." wow. this kind of food passion rarely bubbles within aaron. i was thrilled. i told him now to go eat an apple. but he refused. a turkey sandwich. more refusal. scrambled eggs. still no. i went back to the apple, and even offered to go get it and bring it to him in bed. he refused. i may have persisted more and gone and got the apple anyways, just to see what he would do if it were actually in his hands, but all the memories of finding day old, uneaten apples in the deep caverns of aaron's backpack haunted my mind, not wanting to let another apple's hopes of being eaten get so postponed that that poor apple's psyche has turned on eating itself.

i gave up and went to sleep.

more amazing food secrets were revealed today when i told aaron about the groceries i bought for him to eat while i am gone for the rest of the week. fifty cent frozen burritos, one dollar frozen pizzas, bagels and cream cheese, one dollar pasta sauce for the noodles we have, and a real treat of wheat thins baked crackers. garden veggie flavored. his eyes actually were glowing at the description of all this food and he admitted that he probably would eat it all while i was gone. he confessed that when i make such a fuss about wanting him to eat more food, it actually makes him want to eat less. that almost crushed my little heart. my food obsession has turned terribly south and is now working against me! my love for food is destroying aaron's desire to eat! how can this be?

well, he can eat all the frozen burritos he wants while i am gone.

We Are Like Children

Today was a brilliant manifestation of springtime. The sun was shinning, the arctic winds ceased to howl, the temperature rose and birds roamed the air. The best part part about this day was the chance it offered us to actually be outside and walk to church. We began our walk down 200 East and it seemed nature was quite pleased with the change in weather. Rachel, however, spotted a small tale of unfortunate events on the sidewalk. As she points at the sidewalk, I hear her exclaim, "Is that a snail and a poo?!" Her excited sighting of a possible pooping snail caught me off-guard. We were five steps past it by the time I realized she was referring to the insect entrails that we had just passed. Fortunately for me, Rachel's curiosity wasn't satiated, I would be able to get a better look...Rach grabs my arm and hastily pulls me back to what was presumed to be snail guts. Our review of the murder scene, left us thinking the "snail and a poo" looked more like a caterpillar and its guts lying next to it. The caterpillar killer has remains to be identified. Investigation still pending.

Other highlights of the day:

• I had to give a talk in church today, so we put my talk on the iPad for convenient pulpit access. Rachel obviously didn't trust me enough, so she locked the iPad screen so that I wouldn't start playing with it while I was speaking. I wonder how many times she thought I'd try to rotate the screen.
• Rachel and I have a tradition of playing with set of tiny magnet balls while we're in sunday school (thanks to Katie), today our Sunday school experience was made even better by the addition of Juicy Pear Jelly Bellies.
• I had the hiccups, Rachel tried to burp me like a baby, which of course doesn't work for hiccups. For some reason this led me to attempt to burp her, at which point real burps came out.

5 months

yes. aaron and i have been married for five whole months. not really a landmark, i know, but why not make it one?

a few weeks ago, i decided that in order to manage budget expenses and calorie savings, i would only ask aaron for ice cream once a month. well, tonight was the night. 5 month anniversary and a banana peanut butter cup milkshake from the malt shoppe that was over flowing. it wasn't our favorite combination, but there is always next month to experiment again!

cottonseed oil + hair = monster

last night, aaron and i did something we don't usually do. we went to the grocery store. when all that is in your fridge is half a loaf of homemade bread, a little bit of milk, and eggs, you know it's time to do whatever it takes to make time to go to the store.

aaron has a serious grocery-store phobia. he claims it is a combination of the fluorescent lights, the innumerable decisions that need to be made between almost similar products, and the sheer amount of time spent mindlessly walking up and down aisle looking for things that cause the trip to the store to suck the happiness and life out of him.

for me however, the grocery trip is like an efficient microcosm of life. it starts with me making a list. i can check so many things off that one list in such a short period of time. it is quite satisfying. plus, i like to dilly-dally, looking at all the strange products i didn't know existed and dream about what delicious food could be made with them, if only i had an endless amount of money to spend on food, and an endless amount of time to make it all. and so it is with life--i like to dream about all the things i want to learn and do, but then continue forward with checking off my list. i should really break out of the list mind-set. i think it's holding me back. i should just go for it, live my dreams, and buy the spice apple bran muffin mix.

i always have this goal that i only want to go to the grocery store once a month. i don't think it has ever happened, but i keep trying. i planned out about eight legitimate meals, thinking that would last us the whole month of march, also knowing that we always have a few illegitimate meal options as well when time or resources fail us--namely tuna melts dipped in hot chocolate, kraft macaroni and cheese that we scored at a white elephant party, and oatmeal. hopefully, i got everything i needed for all the legitimate meals. what i am not so good at planning out is when the tomatoes and lettuce will go bad (it's not even tomato season), and if aaron will end up eating all the cheese before i get to use it for the designated meal. aaron's new job gives him free cereal and milk every morning, so i'm already afraid that the usual two gallons of milk rule will end in rotten milk this time around.

anyway, back to the grocery store. as we were looking for minced clams and clam juice (to make clam chowder), we found that they neighbored a dear friend of mine, smoked oysters. i decided it was time to initiate aaron into a clark family tradition of eating and enjoying smoked oysters, which we do at least every christmas eve (not to mention the waning tradition of oyster stew on christmas eve). since i didn't see the brand that my family usually buys, naturally we went for the .99 cent option.

i'll just let the pictures display aaron's feelings about eating the .99 cent oysters...

mmmmm.....

now, to explain the title of this post. let's just say that the cottonseed oil that the oyster were bathing in ended up dripping almost everywhere. combine that with the omnipresence of my hair almost everywhere and aaron decided we were creating monsters on our kitchen floor. he liked the oysters, in fact he said he might even be able to get addicted to him, but the cottonseed oil repulsed him.

a delicious duo

i'm actually sure this has already been invented, but i thought it was my own stroke of genius. it all started with hunger, and my natural urge to make cookies. i had left over white chocolate chips and butterscotch chips from making seven layer bars for my old roommate's bridal shower, so i thought cookies would be a perfect way to use them up. well, as i was making my cookie dough, the limited counter space in our kitchen forced me into close proximity with the little-bit-hard caramels that my visiting teacher made me. hmmm, i thought. these caramels are too hard for me to eat right now, but what if i put them inside my cookies? the result was quite delicious, and if you ever get stuck with hard caramels, i might suggest trying out the same. i first made a batch with no chips, just caramels on the inside, but then after tasting how good they were, i made my final sheet with butterscotch chips and caramel inside. they are in the oven as i type. i can't wait to eat one. (technically, i'll just eat half and give aaron the other half. sometimes sharing is the only way i'll get him to eat sweets....and allow myself to eat more halves than i would have wholes.)

besides delicious cookie making, our lives are pretty normal. that means we are stressed, busy, don't-know-what-will-happen-in-the-future students. being married, according to a university of michigan study, gives the average women 7 extra hours of work per week. i learned that little fact as i was preparing trivia for said bridal shower this past weekend. being married, also, i have come to learn, adds quite a deal of stress to my already busy husband. he got a new job, which he is quite excited about, but now we wake up at 5:45 so he can be to work at 7. then he works until 12 or 12:30 and goes straight to school until 5. today he came home and made me tacos before i got back. wonderful, right!?

he's studying on the couch now, learning stuff and putting information in his head in hopes that in the very near future he can "support a family" with that knowledge. (i don't mean very near future as in a "family" is very nearly on its way, but rather i mean the urgency that aaron feels to "support")

side note: one of my professors did, actually, ask me if i was pregnant today in a somewhat roundabout way. no, i'm not pregnant. i just burped up a little stomach acid in your class once, chewed a piece of gum to make the taste go away, and said i puked in my mouth when you asked me why i was chewing gum. i guess he took that for morning sickness.)

anyway, back to aaron studying on the couch. all i'm doing is making rather delicious cookies. but such is life. i need him to get me serious and thinking about what i want to spend my time in life doing, and he needs me to force him to breathe and eat more cookies than he wants to.

now for some epic countdowns:

4 weeks until my last dance concert at BYU ever! and simultaneously, the performance of my senior project. this also means my parents will be in utah. hooray!

6 weeks of classes. that's it. then i'm done. graduation. no more classes. no more homework.

7.5 weeks until aaron and i will be in cancun. yes, the destination is confirmed. cancun baby. then summer time. who knows what that will bring!