The Week A Mormon Calls Into a Foodie Podcast

The exciting thing that happened this week was that Ben was the feature caller on one of our favorite podcasts, the Sporkful!

The podcast's tag line is "it's not for Foodies, it's for Eaters" and it focuses on how to make the most from your eating experience. Whether that be to fold your slice of pizza in half, cheese-side out, to have immediate contact between tongue and cheese (an idea I disagree with, but admittedly have yet to try), or whether or not it's best to have more bite variety or bite consistency, when you listen to the show, opinions arise in you that you didn't realize you had, and it's really fun! Dan Pashman, the podcast's host, interviews various food experts, restaurant owners, food bloggers, Weird Al, and even a meteorologist, about their approaches to food and eating, as well as getting glimpses into places like the Campbell food test kitchens (they have five "types" of kitchens that reflect different eating/cooking personalities of their consumers). It's a really interesting show that I highly recommend to anyone who gets any enjoyment out of eating.

Back in the Swing of Things

On Sunday (the day I actually typed most of this post) Ben and I enjoyed a romp through YouTube introducing one another to various choral and orchestral music that we each either grew up with or discovered at some and really enjoyed. It's a nice Sunday tradition that I would love to keep. It all started with Rene Clausen's "Magnificat." Our lesson at church this morning was in part about Mary's response to the angel who announced that she would birth Christ so I felt compelled this evening to find a performance of this song, which I sang with my high school choir. It is a gorgeous song, that I highly recommend listening to at some point.

This week was a LOT of work for both Ben and me. The Utah Opera opens Pearl Fishers next Saturday so they asked me to put in a few hours extra to help get everything finished. I'm assisting in crafts, which generally isn't my forte but I've really enjoyed it. I've made all the turbans for the chorus and two male leads, and gotten to do some jewelry things, which I've never done before. It has been a great learning experience. 

Happy 2015!

Last year was a sad, sad year of blogging. And for our "goals for 2014." Granted, we did a lot of amazing things that weren't on the list, like complete grad school (I can't believe I didn't put that on my list, I mean, that was an easy thing to cross off! It's like adding things to my to-do list after I've completed them to make myself feel better...), move across country, and put together a Western-states tour of Ben's show. We had a freaking awesome year! Ben reminds me of this when I complain about how I never finished blogging about our summer tour and didn't finish the Book-To-Movie Challenge I had set out for myself. In fact, there are four more blog posts that are sitting as "drafts" because I read the book but never got around to seeing the movie. They may actually get posted this year... I mean, I did put in the work to read the book and write a post about it.

Alright, I just checked those four posts, and three of them just have a title... So they may never get posted, and I'm choosing to be okay with it.

That being said, there are THIRTY-EIGHT books coming out as movies this year and I WILL READ THEM ALL!!!

Just kidding. But I am putting a book list together for this year consisting primarily of books off my own shelves and Nook, with merely a handful of these movie-books thrown in; just the top few I'm really excited to see, or planned to read anyway (like Frankenstein!)

I'm also aiming to blog each week throughout the year. I did in 2013 and really enjoyed it, plus it gave me an excuse to take, go through, organize, and post photos.

We have a few other goals that we've focused on making simple and attainable. We have dreams, folks, and we're going to get 'em!

Late in April a tiny person is joining our family and will undoubtedly turn all our beautifully arranged "goals" on their head, but we'll take it in stride and figure it out when the time comes.

I'm a little rusty and have forgotten how to gracefully end a post... so for now, HAPPY NEW YEAR! Here's a pretty photo collage of us and my new years' sparkles: