A traveling we go

Andy has just been offered a job working on a feature-length documentary for the entire summer, which is such a cool opportunity. He wants to get into films, and this could potentially open some doors for him and put him in new circles, not to mention he'll have steady work for a long (in his field) period of time.

The downside of this is that he will be in India and China all summer. Oh, and he'll potentially be in San Francisco during my birthday. He has a crazy itinerary the next few months:

• San Francisco April 6-10
• India April 12 through June 14 (he does get a break from April 28 through May 8, during which I will hopefully visit him, and which I am *very* excited about)
• Home from June 14 until July 4
• China from July 5 August 25

While I'm super excited to see his career take off, I'm not excited to be home by myself all summer. I need some suggestions of some good projects I should start. Any ideas? Of course, if you'd like to visit me in Denver, I would LOVE the company...just call me and we'll arrange it!

How do you like your eggs?

I have never been very adventurous with eggs - I mostly ate them scrambled. Sometimes with veggies and salsa, but usually just plain. Andy's like his eggs made with lemon pepper and stirred to perfect flufiness with chopsticks. Sometimes I like a good fried egg, but the whites are usually too rubbery for me to choke down.

Scrambled eggs are nice, not only because of their texture, but because they stay in place on the plate, without running into other food, like over-easy or poached eggs. I've long been a firm believer that different foods are not meant to intermingle on the plate. When I see people dip their toast in a fried egg yolk, I push my eggs even farther away from my toast, just to ensure no crossing-over takes place.

A while ago I decided to make eggs benedict for my darling husband. Once I had the Hollandaise sauce figured out, I had to poach the eggs. The thought of boiling an egg in water, sans shell, completely grossed me out. All that swirly, twirly white floating in water just didn't look right. But I tried it, and I became hooked.

Now, my favorite way to eat eggs is poached in water with salt and vinegar, on top of buttered toast, with a little cracked pepper on top. If you like eggs, try it! It's a delicious, quick, and cost-effective breakfast that is consumed at least twice a week at the Ahlstrom house.

Free rice

Okay, so I'm totally stealing this off of Stephanie's blog, but I figure since it has captured my attention for the past 20 minutes, it's worth sharing.

http://freerice.com/index.php

I don't know if rice really is donated for every right answer you get, but it sure was fun to test my vocabulary skills.

Artsy fartsy

A member of the church who lives in the Denver area has collected over 200 pieces of art by Albrecht Durer, Lucas van Leyden, Peter Paul Rubens, and Rembrandt. All pieces depict scenes from the Bible, with most of them focusing on the Savior - his birth, his life, his death, and his resurrection.

I can think of no better way to celebrate Easter than by going to this exhibit, which has been touring Denver area stake centers for the past month.

What impressed me the most was the level of detail they used in their pieces. We got to examine them with a magnifying glass, and I was astounded at how much detail went into one piece. To think how hard it would be to create a woodcut, cutting away the "negative space," but then to do it backwards! Andy was impressed how they still depicted lighting principles, just as if you were lighting two people for a portrait. I am astounded by the talented artists of the world.

I also started thinking about how little diety and religion are depicted in art anymore. It used to be so prominent, and now what paintings hang on our walls?

I've heard that the church is looking at getting this exhibit to a broader audience. If it makes it to you, I highly recommend it!

Bloggers, I'm zausted

When my friend's daughter Sydney is tired, she'll say, "Mom, I'm zausted."

This is me - completely exhausted and ready to fall asleep on my laptop. I have been working on a big project at work, and am getting home just in time to eat dinner and fall asleep. Hence the period of silence as of late.


I'm on the tail end of said project and getting back to normal sleeping habits, so watch for more regular posts!

Sew what?

Last Saturday I went to my friend Stacy's baby shower. I kind of forgot about it, and when Friday night rolled around, I figured I'd better get some sort of present together. I found these adorable onesies on Martha Stewart's website. The appliqued French bulldog was just so cute, I thought I'd give it a go.

I have always wanted to be great at sewing. And I have definitely tried. In college I took a sewing class (yes, they offer sewing classes in college), and I think the teacher was so horrified by my sewing issues that she passed me out of pity. For some reason, it seems that each time I touch a sewing machine, it has some sort of problem and promply breaks. So thinking I was going to make some onesies less than 24 hours before they were to be given as a gift was a prety lofty goal.

One screwed-up onesie later (which I managed to sew shut as I was sewing on the applique), I finished these two little bulldogs.

Unfortunately, I just didn't have fabric as cute as they did on Martha (darn JoAnn's has the crappiest fabrics), but I made due with what was laying around. I was so proud of myself - I figured out the zigzag stitch on my sewing machine, and I even managed to sew around those tiny bulldog feet. It's been a while since I was so excited that I did a dance of joy, but this occasion called for a joyous dance around my sewing machine.

I wrapped them up with a fun book about a bulldog, The Fabulous Bouncing Chowder.

Hopefully, Stacy liked them. All I had at my house were newborn onesies, so hopefully her baby will fit into them at least once!

To pull or not to pull?

Whenever we go to the dentist, he jokes that I should have inspected Andy's teeth before I married him, like people used to inspect horse's teeth before they bought them. And he also says that he hopes our kids get their mother's teeth. Great.

However, after this weekend, I pray they get my teeth too, if for any reason than to save them the pain that Andy suffered the last couple of weeks.


He had a cavity filled two weeks ago. Shortly after it was filled, he started having really bad pain. For a week, he suffered before calling the dentist. Our dentist said it was infected and put him on an antibiotic and a painkiller. Okay...should clear up, right? Wrong!

A week later, he was almost through the antibiotic, and the pain got worse. I have never seen Andy in so much pain. He couldn't eat, he couldn't sleep (neither could I, thank you very much). He couldn't focus. The dentist said to finish the antibiotic and if it didn't get better, Andy would have to get a root canal. And this past weekend, it just got worse and worse and worse. And worse.

I have no idea what an abscessed tooth feels like, but I do know that I called our dentist at 12:30 Saturday night because Andy had one. Sunday morning, actually. He said that if the pain was so unbearable, and Andy couldn't wait for the root canal, he should just go in and have it pulled. Um, they still do that? I had no idea.

We got up at 6:00 Sunday morning and drove to the dentist. 45 minutes each way, in a snowstorm, no less. (Who knew it could be 70 degrees one day and a torrential blizzard less than 24 hours later?) An hour and a half later, the tooth was gone, the pain was gone, there were huge wads of gauze all over the place, and Andy was able to sleep. And smile.

Poor Andy. I think after this weekend, we're in agreement that we hope our kids get my teeth. And that they will brush and floss at least every hour on the hour...