Things have been crazy and stressful and Casa Winder for more than a few reasons... number one being that my nanny family decided to end their summer vacation early and relieve me of duties. So, IF anyone is still reading this, and IF anyone is aware of any odd-job work opportunities, my schedule is totally open until I start school (!) on August 25th.

In the mean time, I'm planning on spending a lot of time with my new favorite thing:

This is the AWESOMEST cookbook ever and let me tell you, it is changing my life. We are huge fans of bread (the only that trumps good bread for me MIGHT be popcorn-- that is serious, people) and I have been trying to perfect my breadmaking skills for some time now. I stumbled on a couple of reviews for this baby and decided it fit into few goals I have going right now:

1. Eat better (better as it is defined by my taste buds)
2. Eat healthier (as in, if I make it myself it has no nasty perservatives to slowly cook our insides into something no longer resembling a human being)
3. Eat cheaper (I will spare you the lecture on rising food costs)
   
4. Save time (because I don't have very much of that right now, and even less when school starts (!) on August 25th).
5. Perfect my culinary abilities in an effort to win friends, influence people, and maximize opportunities for Isaac to brag about my mad cooking skillz.

I elected to get this book from the library because eat cheaper, which is not good english, is part of larger goal to stay out of as much debt as humanly possible while pursuing my bachelors degree and trendy new cookbooks have not been effectively worked into the budget.

There were so! many! recipes to try but they all start with one a few basic bread doughs that are fast, easy, and stay in the fridge for as long as TWO WEEKS (not that it has ever lasted that long in our house). For the Boule, which I make most often, you literally dump in the four ingredients, let it rise for a while, and stick it in the fridge till you're ready to bake. I've been getting about three loaves from each batch-- so, I make some dough on a Sunday afternoon (um, I mix when we get home from church while my lunch is heating up, and refrigerate whenever it is I get up from my Mandatory Sunday Nap) and we have fresh, hot bread with three dinners that week. If we can restrain ourselves from eating it all in one sitting, we have pretty fresh bread for all the other dinners, too. It's a chewy, moist peasant bread (that's what they call it) with a yummy crispy crust-- and that's just the first recipe. I'm also trying out Italian corn bread, Boule with my very own home-grown rosemary and thyme (my favorite), sandwich bread (which is taking some fine tuning, I'll admit), and I think there are at least 25 post-it notes marking things I want to try next. In summary: check into this book if you're interested in cheaper, healthier, yummier bread without slaving away in the kitchen all day.

The best part of this story is that my Uncle Keith, who has apparently set the goal become Candalyn's favorite uncle ever heard about my totally awesome bread and ordered me my very own copy. (He heard about my totally awesome bread from my gramme, who was bragging about it to him. My gramme is my hero, and the best cook ever, and hearing her tell someone about my cooking skills was one of the most fulfilling moments of my life).

100 Book Challenge

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love to read. Growing up I read just about anything I could get my hands on; I was usually so desperate for title that found myself wandering the library shelves looking for interesting covers. (A terribly age-appropriate way to go about finding reading material, I promise). In the last couple years I found myself in the opposite situation: so many books, so little time! Between blogs, friends, and the super awesome librarians I worked with at Utah State, I was always hearing about something I was dying to get my eyeballs on. Of course, college wasn't really conducive to my bookworm lifestyle and I could never keep up. I had lists everywhere: on scraps of paper, in my journal, scribbled in the back of my planner. I could never keep track of anything for long. For awhile I tried to keep a little notebook--both for reading material and as a reading log-- but the pencil always smeared, and half the time I couldn't remember what the book was supposed to be about. I hated going to all the effort of tracking a book down when half the time it wasn't something I was in the mood for just then (the Logan Library has a frustratingly outdated system, and carried maybe half of the titles I wanted).

Enter my favorite website: Shelfari. It lets me keep two lists: one of books I want to read, and one of books I've already read. When I come across a book that looks interesting, I add it to my shelf. Then when I'm ready for something new, I browse through the cover art and maybe click on the book to read a jacket's description, and reviews from other members (I keep the maximum number of holds at the Hunter Library so I always have something coming in). When someone wants to know if I have any books to suggest, I can go to my shelf (where I can tag, rate, and review each book) and find something in the right genre. And I love having a record of the books that suck up so much of my time.

I decided this year to join one of the many groups on Shelfari and challenge myself to read 100 books this year. That's an average of two books a week and right now I'm even a little ahead-- which is good, since there's no way to keep up the pace come fall. By setting this goal, I've somehow given myself permission to stop feeling guilty about spending time with a book, and instead I've worked it into my schedule as a priority. I love letting myself get lost in a good story, but I'm also mixing in a good bit of non-fiction and I'm empowered by a lot of what I read, too. It's a nice change of pace from textbooks and lesson plans.

I've put a widget up on the left side that shows my most recent reads off my Shelfari list. I'm not sure how I feel about displaying all my nerdy interests, but there you go. It's a big part of my life and I want to put it out there.

Are you on Shelfari? Add me as a friend so I can see what you're reading, too!

Not Really My Idea of A Vacation

I have an an awesome aunt and uncle who are spending some serious time at a so-called cabin this summer. This week was an extended family get-together near their place, so my parentals collected their children and we headed to beautiful Island Park. For those of you not familiar with it, Island Park can be found in the Eastern portion of that great state, the one and only Idaho. It looks a lot like this:


And also a lot like this:


These pictures really don't begin to do it justice . The lake is breathtaking and the forest is lush and green. So green that it really catches me off guard, being that my part of the world really does count as a desert. It helped that it RAINED most of the week (let's remember that the Winders were occupying a tent) and when it finally stopped raining, well, we'll talk about that later.

The main purpose of the trip to Island Park (besides the family bondage) was to do this:


My grandfather has a nice set of ATV's that he generously shares with his family and we get to go play on these babies a few times a year. I'm not the biggest fan of four wheeling-- it's fun but not a big deal-- but the trails were nice and muddy (again with the RAIN) and so the one ride I was able to fit in turned out to a great big splashfest of the dirty kind.


This picture doesn't really show the muddy mess we were both covered in, but you get the idea. I LOVED it. The sun came out for a few short hours, and Isaac and I went off to do our own thing. It turns out that riding is a lot more enjoyable when you're not sharing an ATV and riding in a convoy of 15 or so people.

We ended up spending a good part of the five day trip huddled up under a tent trying to stay warm. Good attitudes abounded:


Yup, the joy and rejoicing were everywhere. I did manage to get through three really good books, even if I did most of the reading while hiding in the parked car.

The last night we were there the clouds parted and gave us a beautiful goodbye:

That was the last of the good feelings, because about this time Isaac was the first of several victims to fall prey to some nasty bug. It hit me during the night and by the morning of our departure my sisters and dad were starting to go, too. And then I looked out the window and what did I see?
Snow. THREE INCHES of SNOW. It turned out to be FIVE INCHES of SNOW by the time we left, because Isaac had been feeling so horrible that we spent that night at my parent's cabin, and I still had to go pack up our stuff from the TENT in the SNOW. Apparently, someone in charge missed the memo that it's JUNE. And I know that part of the world isn't exactly toasty yet, but the SNOW just kind of left me bitter. And the stomachache didn't help, either.

This is what it looked like when we left town, all four of us sick with various ailments.

They actually had the snow plows out, it was that bad. I wasn't happy but Chelle and Isaac were truly miserable... it was a long drive home. We're still recovering.

And that was our vacation. It wasn't really horrible-- we had a fun day of window shopping and lunch out in West Yellowstone, Isaac got in a couple of extra rides, and it was nice to be in a quiet, pretty place with family to talk to. But somehow it's the bad parts that are sticking in my memory.

I have a MILLION things I have been meaning to post here: the Holi Festival, our trip to Moab, a couple of weddings, our new house, and all of the new-to-us things we've been acquiring to fill it. I finally dug the camera cable out of a box last week (I think we might be all the way unpacked!) and offloaded all our pictures; I even organized them into nice little folders for each post. I was all ready to start in on them and what happens? The computer DIES. The pictures are still there-- my genius husband put them in a safe place (some special kind of drive that I don't want to understand because that's exactly why I keep him and my dad around, to save me from dealing with that kind of stuff). So they're not lost forever but they are lost for the time being, while we wait for software drivers to come in the mail so Isaac can make one last brave attempt to save the desktop.

In the meantime we're limited to my laptop-- which the perfect computer for surfing the internet and catching up on other people's blogs, but its a good ten years old and even if it had any of my pictures on it, it just doesn't have the memory to load even one .jpg onto this website. If the desktop can't be brought back to life I don't know what we'll do (homework doesn't work on the laptop, either, so come September it will be a need instead of a want) but for now I have to keep putting off all the stuff I'd rather be writing about.

So, that's my excuse, for now. Just so you know.

Placement Made!

The other day I finally got my placement for student teaching this fall. There has been some serious anxiety on my part about this semester, so it felt good to finally know where I'll be ending up (they mailed placements a MONTH late this semester, which didn't help). For those of you who don't know about the student teaching system, my semester is split into two blocks; I switch classes following the UEA break.

I'll be working at Lake Ridge Elementary in Magna-- all the way out at 7400 W and 3400 S. I was hoping to be closer (we are planning on sticking to the one car system until I have a full-time contract) but I am working really hard on convincing myself that it's not nearly as far away as it could be.

I'll be spending my first block with a 5th grade class. Ah! I am Early Childhood all the way so this will be interesting-- I thought that 3rd grade was a little rough last semester as I prefer the hero-worship of the younger grades. I'll also be working with a male teacher, something I'm really looking forward to. Men offer a very different way of teaching and thinking about elementary education, and I'm sure there will be a lot of benefit to learning his style.

My second block will be with two Kindergarten classes, working with two teachers (women, of course, because I've NEVER heard of a man teaching kindergarten, unfortunately). Last time I worked in Kindergarten, my last semester of high school, was a life-changing experience. I fell in love with the kids and that class was the reason I ended up pursuing the dual major. So it will be interesting to see if Kindergarten is really as amazing as I remember it being.

I am responsible for planning and executing at least one complete unit for each block, plus taking over the class for at least two weeks. So now I'm in the process of getting a hold of these teachers and planning out my semester-- in theory, anyway. Because I have always been responsible, organized, and not procrastinating like that.

ABC's and 123's

My cousin Aimee tagged me on this ages ago-- but here you go!

A - Attached or single? Somehow I think marriage counts as a little more than attachment.

B - Best friend? Isaac rocks my world. But Lindsay, lets be honest, you were my first love.

C - Cake or pie? Definitely pie, my dad got me hooked on that one.

D - Day of choice? Right now I'm really enjoying Sundays. Mostly the afternoon part, where I get to crawl back in bed for a few hours.

E - Essential item? Chapstick-- do you remember the urban legend about how chapstick has something addictive in it? Whatever it is, it worked. I'm hooked.

F - Favorite color? Green. With brown.

G - Gummy bears or worms? Worms.

H - Hometown? This is a problem here, folks, and something I've been thinking about lately. My first response is to say Boise, because that's where I feel like I grew up, but something about my family abandoning the most perfect place in the worlds makes me feel like an outsider. In reality I went to elementary school in Salt Lake, which is significant because that's where I met Isaac. And we're living here now and lets face it, I think we will be living here for the rest of our lives. But as much as I love Salt Lake I'm a newcomer and its sooo not my hometown-- or even if it were, WHICH PART would be the one to claim? Taylorsville, where I lived the longest? West Jordan, where I was born and where my parents went after Boise? Or West Valley, where I am now? I guess I could claim Logan but that doesn't really seem right either. I'm feeling lost. Isn't there a psychological term for this? Something we could blame my parents for? Rant over.

I - Indulgences?Popcorn, garbanzo beans, blog reading, library books, sleeping in.

J - January or July? July is hot and sweaty and absolutely beautiful. I adore it.

K - Kids? Lets see: I teach, I babysit, I borrow small babies on a regular basis. I collect children's books and I daydream about how I will raise my own. I am with them at work and at a school and I voluntary hang out with them during my free time. I am definitely noticing a trend here.

L - Life isn't complete without? Isaac. And after that, our families.

M - Marriage date? December 19, 2006.

N - Number of brothers and sisters? Four-- two of each. And I am the bossiest older sister ever.

O - Oranges or apples? Apples

P - Phobias or fears? Garbage trucks and spiders. I don't know, I can't explain it either.

Q - Quote?
"Sexiness wears thin after a while, and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh everyday, ah, now that's a real treat!"
-Joanne Woodward

I really like my husband for a lot of reasons, but this covers a whole bunch. The man is an absolute delight.

R - Reason to smile? Besides Isaac? How about I am sitting in a quiet house and my only responsibility is two years old and taking a nap.

S - Season of choice? Summer, summer, summer.

T - Tag six: Oh boy, I hate this part. How about: the other Aimee (that's you, with the little figs. Am I right you don't like your last name out there?), Sarah, Camille, Whittney, Jalayne, and the OTHER Aimee, the one who is in DC.

U - Unknown fact about me? I already told you I was afraid of garbage trucks. I think that's enough TMI for one day, thank you very much.

V - Vegetable? Do garbanzo beans count? If not, I am in love with asparagus anyway.

W - Worst habit? Reading too much. Or maybe eating too much.

X - X-ray or ultrasound? I'm not really sure what kind of a question this is... I'll stick with the ultrasound.

Y - Your favorite food? Popcorn. And also garbanzo beans. Mmmm.

Z - Zodiac sign? Leo

1 -we have just one car and I think living here is going to make that more challenging that it was before.

2 – this is how many times the power has gone out in the last 36 hours.

3 – days I have left to write a talk for church on Sunday. Using the theme of Memorial Day... oy. I don't like being a grown up.

4 – years since I left Boise.

5 - could be the number of kids I want . Maybe.

6 - months till I graduate. Probably.

7 - the number of library books I have waiting on hold for me.

8 - days since I last went grocery shopping.

9 -weeks since my last haircut. It's getting desperate.

10 – the number of nieces and nephews we have, soon to be upped.

Sorry for the long absence guys! It has been a super busy month: Moab was a blast, finishing school was NOT, we're living in West Valley now (and I love it), and I've started my new job. Right now, actually, I am getting paid to blog. Bueno. I hate that I've neglected this thing so soon after I started it, but the last few weeks have taken all of my time and energy with nothing left over. I am working on catching up, I promise.

We spent last week in Taylorsville babysitting for my niece and nephews while Aimee and Matt ran away to Cancun. Luckily, they came back-- because I love those kids bunches and bunches but right now I am really enjoying my very simple, very quiet newlywed lifestyle. No one has to practice, or do homework, or make their beds. Including me.

Some of the highs and lows of the week:

High: All the kids dressed up as movie stars for their recital: Hannah Montana, Indiana Jones, Obiwan, and Darth Vader (as a bobble head).


Low:Isaac getting in a car accident while driving Matt and Aimee's van. Luckily, he wasn't hurt-- and he wasn't at fault. We are very, very grateful for that; the damage was a lot worse than this picture really shows.


Also low: Coming home from dealing with the accident to realize that Marcus hadn't come home with the carpool, and finding him sitting on the school lawn, crying.

Hilarious: Caleb praying that "Isaac won't make any more car wrecks until Mommy and Daddy get home."

Ironic: Caleb praying for a vacation to 'come really soon.' (Sorry kid, the vacation came and your parents took it without you!)

Starting to see a trend: Caleb running around in his Indiana Jones costume for three days straight, trying to sing the theme song and chanting 'bumsheila, bumsheila' at random, inappropriate moments. (I hope you're reading this, Nate!)



Sorry this picture is sideways, picasa is giving me fits today, and I've been putting off this post too long to worry about it.

Suspicious: Caleb asking me if there was baby in my tummy, because I was fat! (his words-- I suspect this may have been staged, but still).

(Sidenoe: I totally blame Matt for the hilarious one-liners we got from all four kids, all week long. It is incredibly hard to discipline a child when you can't stop laughing at whatever excuse or argument they're using to get out of trouble.)

Threatening my marriage: Finding myself alone with seven kids, aged 5 months to nine years, as sacrament meeting started when Isaac up and decided to help with the sacrament; watching four boys tumble and make car noises through the whole meeting.

So true: Aubree leaning over to tell me that when Isaac and I have kids we would probably do better if we had them one at a time. (The chances of posterity was hanging by a thread at that point, anyway). Blake (a distant Winder relative, kind of, who lives near Isaac's parents) told me after the meeting that he didn't know what I was going to do when I had my own. (Hey, me neither!)

Fun: Spending so long helping Marcus and Caleb make bubble beards and mohawks that we had to refill the tub to finish the job.






Sweet: Loving Caleb to death every night as I put him to bed and delighting in the love returned.

Very sweet: Catching Isaac cloud-watching with the little boys in the backyard (they were pretending to nap in this picture).
Disclaimer: Aubree and Tyler are awesome, too, but taking pictures is a great way to pass the day with Caleb and Marcus while the big kids are at school. They just didn't have so many opportunities to be in the spotlight.

It was a powerful experience for me as I watched my husband interact with these kids he loves so much. I was kind of amazed by how much I loved them, too, even after an exhausting week of baptism by fire. Being with our nieces and nephews is a big part of why we feel so strongly we should be here, and this week was a perfect example of a good decision in action. I feel so lucky to be a part of Isaac's wonderful family.

One thing I learned: I think that Isaac and I will make an excellent parenting team. I absolutely reveled in the partnership we had as we kept house & family together in Matt & Aimee's absence and I am looking forward to doing it for real. Marriage rocks, even (especially) when it takes a lot of effort.

(Please don't get too excited about what I just wrote. I am not pregnant and its no use asking when I will be. I will be looking forward to parenting for a while longer, I promise.)