Pumpkin Pie Day

Last week while my parents were out of town at the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert (...seriously) Luke saw a van drive by and drop something off on our doorstep. A pumpkin. Heartland Vineyard church had dropped off pumpkins to all of the houses in the neighborhood. It was cute to look up and down the street and see a pumpkin on everyone's doorstep but we had other plans for ours. Pie. I'd never made a pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin before so I thought we would try it. (By the way, when I just typed "try" it came out "trie" the first time) Now this was only my second overall pumpkin pie baking experience. One time for growth group we made a whole bunch of pumpkin pies but I don't remember why or what happened to them. Alex?

Anyway. So I found some instructions online and then found a can of pumpkin in the cupboard so we decided to make two pies - one out of a pumpkin and one from canned pumpkin. Oh I know, we're thrilling people. Alisha and Isaiah even came over to witness the adventure.

Step one was to clean out, cut up and roast the pumpkin. It was harder than I thought it would be to cut it up into big chunks and it was kind of a pain to have to scrape it out of the chunks. Someone online said to just cut it in half (squash style) and that's definitely what I'll do next time. There was a longer roasting and cooling time but it would be worth it.

Luke was in charge of getting the spices and stuff ready. He was trying to put the sugar away and the brown rice got in the way and escaped...all the floor.Done!

It turned out pretty well. I think it would be tastier if I had roasted the pumpkin longer. You can kind of see that the inside is a little pale and there was a little bit of a raw pumpkiny taste. I also made the mistake of not using the same recipe for each pie so I couldn't really tell if the differences were because of the pumpkin or because of the recipe. Rookie mistake.

That's it for that adventure. This week's cooking fun was lasagna but that's not all that exciting so there won't be a post dedicated to it. The end.

Subj: I am a giant Starbucks nutball

I got this email from Bender after I told her I got a job at Starbucks. I've been coming across it in my inbox for a while now and crack up every time I read it so I thought I'd share. I'm sure she'll be really glad that I put it on the internet. It's pretty long, but definitely worth it!

Hi, You may remember me as Laura, which i go by for the most part but sometimes when i get really really excited and friendly at work I say that i am different people. You see, I work at the place of Starbucks. We don't even know what kind of a silly name this is but we don't even ask about it as we put on our green aprons and make loads and loads of coffee and say the words of would you like a pastry? My husband thinks that pastry is a funny word to say and should be omitted from everyone's vocabulary, i have other friends that feel the same way about the words moist and crevice especially when they are used together.

So...as i am working at this place i get put on "Drive Thru" a lot. On account of my speedy hands, feet and voice. You should see my body it is like a superhero. Well somedays i get to make all the drinks for Drive Thru and other times i get to talk to the people that come through the lane. At first i was very normal and polite about asking what they wanted and then sometimes when they would ask me how I was. I told them that i was very uncomfortable stuck in that little box and asked them if they could please get me out or at least pass me some water through the little vents so that i would not get thirsty. After a while i got tired of this and so i needed some new ideas.

I decided to replace, "Good Morning welcome to Starbucks, this is Laura.---or whatever else i would say" With a different person's name. Now most of the people don't even listen to what the heck i say on account of they are trying to remember if Vinte or Tall is the biggest or smallest and how to pronounce Carmel Macchiatto...I got Markalarde one time and i fined this guy 50.00 for not saying it right. Anyways, these people usually don't listen to me say my schpeel but if they did WOWWIE WOW WOW they would be talking to Brittney Spears, or Barbra Striesand, or my new Character of Yoda...who asks questions in this manner. "Pastry would you like?" Oh i am a funny girl. Plus also sometimes when they ask me to wait just a second i hum the JEPORDY theme to them and then they REALLY cannot think.

You must realize that you are being watched by a camera when you go through drive through so I can see all of their expressions as they hear, ignore, or don't hear my little Laurisms.

OK right now we are at the main part of the story...sorry this is so long. Yesterday i really wanted to be a Disney Character and i settled on the Little Mermaid. Now the customers that do hear me and the ones that have come to know me like to play along and ask me how i can be inside when i am a fish...and all sorts of other breathing problems. I not so kindly tell them about the Prince and my dad's amazing lazer spear that shot my aqua green fins apart and now i can walk about on two feet thank you very much. Well, i really wasn't feeling Oceany enough and decided i REALLY needed to get into character. So when one unsuspecting guy (who's name is Dan and he get's a tall coffee with a little cream). Came up to the drive through window. I suddenly remembered the part in the movie when Ariel is singing her song. and get's to the part..."Sometimes they walk, sometimes they run, sometimes the PLAY ALL DAY IN THE SUN...................................." She pushes her merbody up on the rock with all her mermight and the waves come crashing around her. SO i crouched down in my little drive through place and when Dan got to the window i pushed myself up through the window with all my might and scared the seaweed out of him.

My mom used the words, "Laura...know when to say when" very often on me, so today i told my manager that he could say those words to me when i got out of control. That is all.

Love,
Laura

if your name is Tim

CLICK HERE

phase two: eastward

Sunday it was onward to Chicagoland. We stopped in beautiful Oak Park, IL to visit Crissa and her new digs. It was really good to see her and we got a lot of good decorating done in a really short time. Her apartment is lovely and I can't wait to go back and help solve more decorating dilemas. We went to Portillo's and I made her share a chocolate cake shake with me. Yum.
After Crissa it was time for Highland Park.

We decided to have family game night. First we played Clue, which I won by a landslide (Mr. Green in the lounge with the candlesticks). Then Tim offered to school us at Scrabble. He lost horribly. Alex is proudly pointing out that she won (which only happened because I gave her my J).


The next day we headed on up to Milwaukee for a day of greatness. First stop was the Miller Brewery Tour. The first part of the tour was a 15 minute video that started "Since the beginning of time, man has been in search of a thing called MILLER TIME." It only got better after that. The following pictures are in order of brewing proccess, not tour stops.

This is the room with the big copper things

these steel ones are right next to the copper ones
(this room didn't smell like beer so I wasn't paying attention)

BEER!
lots and lots and lots of itthis room is 5 football fields long and stacked 20ft high with beer
it is all shipped out and refilled every 24 hours
that's a lot of beerthe caves
no clue what they were for

alex loves a good caveoh yeah so I forgot my ID in Illinois so instead of a beer tasting, I got a pop tasting.
much less exciting
felt like a fool

After the tour we hung out downtown for a while, bought some CD's and found not only a design store (with really great light fixtures and a cool plastic chair) but 2 doors down was the stationery store. Alex and Tim let me wander around for a while (they rule). It was the best.

I found these little fortune things and made us all pick one and this was Alex's. It was so great because that's what we were doing!

Game Time!Oh yeah, btw, the point of going to Milwaukee was to see the Brewers/Cardinals game. It was a good time. Tim was excited for batting practice so when Pujols was batting we went to catch home runs in the left field bleachers. We didn't catch any home runs but I yelled at Chris Carpenter and he threw a ball up to me!! I may or may not have panicked and made Tim catch it (but then demand that he let me keep it).

woo!

fireworks inside!

THE SAUSAGE RACE!!!this was the only part of the night when they were both excited at the same time. polish won (of course).

Tuesday was go home day. We went to see Eli on the way home (not really on the way) at Starbucks. Tim was pretty excited about what my cup said. We even tried a Peanut Butter Whoopie Pie which Eli wouldn't give to me until I actually said "Whoopie Pie"

Then we drove for a long time.
The End.

football schmootball

Last weekend I went to Iowa City for the Iowa State game because I'm a huge Hawks fan and can't imagine missing one exciting minute of the biggest game of the season.

seriously.

Okay so maybe I just went to hang out. Since Rachel and her couch are gone (rude) I decided to camp out for the weekend. Friday I got to hang out and have lunch with DeeDee and Alex (who are pretty much the same person as it turns out) and then meet up with Cate for the evening. We went to Target and got some big kid juice boxes (they have four-packs of wine that comes in little juice box things. you're supposed to pour it into a cup but we just poked a straw right in there).

Alex came to hang out and brought some Pumpkin Ale from Trader Joe's. It's super tasty.

Alex found how to change the shutter settings on my camera.Cate dropped me off downtown to meet up with Tim. Downtown was crazy, it was so awesome. We didn't stay downtown but we did go to Hy-Vee for tailgating supplies (beer) and then went to park the car (at 2am) in the lot. About 3 hours later it was time to wake up and head out.

Woo Tailgating
sunrise, bean bags and High Life

You'll notice that I don't have any more pictures of tailgating because right after this picture was taken we started walking back and forth to different people's tailgates and didn't stop until game time. It would have been more fun if I would have known any of the people or gotten to talk to anyone or had a few beers (or hours of sleep). By the time the game started I was really cranky and didn't care (at all) about the game so I went back to the campsite and took the best nap of my entire life. I woke up and showered and felt so great. I woke up in time to listen to the end of the game and then the post game show. I headed downtown and called a couple people and got to see Betsy and Eli and Cate and Megan all in one afternoon! I even got to go to HOA! It turned out to be an awesome day.

Later that evening Cate and I were too tired to go to a movie so we went back to the farmhouse and had a(nother) camp fire. At one point Noel said "I wish we had some sparklers" and I remembered that I still had some in my car so we got them out. I love that Noel is fun and playful.

Noel

CateWe decided to see what would hapen if we threw them into the fire.
Results? PRETTY DANG COOL!

When I was getting ready to go back to the campsite Cate pointed out that the weather was starting to look pretty bad so we went (with Noel's brother) and took down the tent in the middle of the night and then we had a sleepover (meaning that Noel slept on the couch instead of me). It was great. Sunday morning was the beginning of Leg Two of the mini vacation. It started off really well when I went to clean out the car and slammed the trunk on a carton of soy milk which squirted out all over. More to come, don't worry.

random pictures

before i post a bunch of pictures from last week i thought i should post the other random shots i found on my camera. here you go:

riley at the "doggy dip" at the pool
she's so ugly when she's wet

a very pregnant birthday girl
she wanted to play bingo and i was afraid we wouldn't get to so i got her some scratch tickets just in case.
my niecethis picture was taken a couple weeks ago while i was babysitting her and her brother for the weekend. she ended up getting really sick later this day. i should have known something was up when she asked to go lay in my bed. i was just getting over a cold which i forgot until i saw that the sick quilt was on my bed.

okay, that's all. i thought there were more but i guess not. oh well.

can i blue req this?

yes please.

if this cake had a mario kart track around one of the tiers i would be in tears. (ha!)

happy autumn

It's officially fall. It's cold and there are leaves on my lawn. Here's how I spent today:

8am-Noon: Work
Noon-2pm: Change, Cook, Read
2-3pm: Sit on Crissa's couch watching Grey's Anatomy
3-4pm: Pumpkin Spice Lattes
4-5pm: Dog park with Riley
5-Now: Royal Tenebaums on TV

I can't think of any way I would rather spend my day.

is this from you?

when i saw this on postsecret my heart dropped. i was hit with this strange and raw insecurity, thinking that it must be from someone in my life who is sick of hearing about africa. in fact i even saved the picture and flipped it so that i could get a better look at the handwriting (backwards it looked familiar).

on another note, i can completely relate to this one:

Cool Stuff

this couch turns into bunk beds.
it'll be great for my super tiny sustainable green house when I grow up...and want bunk beds.

iBreath - iPod FM Transmitter and Breathalyzer

Support the Stewart/Colbert ticket. Vote or Die.

Self-inking stamps from Horchow with your monogram and address. Super cute.

I'm Employed!!

And I have full benefits! Woohoo!

Praise the Lord, He answers prayer.

he's finally here!

Meet Isiah Alec Mayfield

He was born this morning around 8. I'm so excited!
Oh and by the way, he pooped for the first time while I was holding him. Woo!

hostile takeover

So I may or may not have taken over another bedroom. Hmm. The problem isn't that I have too much stuff (everything except my bed and bookcase can fit inside my car!), it's just that I have a lot of different kinds of stuff. My old room in Iowa City was ridiculously large and had enough room and furniture for everything. I had a huge desk and a couch and a walk-in closet and tons of opportunities to excersize my obsessive organizational tendencies. My room here is a lot smaller and the main problem (excuse) is that I don't have a desk and all of my shelves are full of books. The guest room is right next door and has Luke's old wall unit furniture which has a desk and tons of shelves. First I was just going to store my printer and support raising materials in there...then I remembered how much better the wireless signal is so I added my computer...then it was Samantha and all of her stuff...then I moved all of my stationery stuff and other office supplies and it has officially become my office room. Don't worry, it will still house Main Event people and you when you come to visit me.

I need to get out of the midwest.

I know I've done this before, in fact I'm sure I've probably even posted it before but I saw it on Kelli's blog and thought I should do it again. I didn't include the states I've driven through or only been to an airport in. I also did the visited countries one but it made me sad so I didn't post it.

create your own visited states map

Labor Day Weekend

Isn't it funny that I'm always posting about things a week after they happen? Labor Day weekend was spent mostly on my uncle's boat on Lake Michigan. It was exactly what I wanted to do for a long weekend. I love the lake so much. When we weren't on the lake we were hanging out on the docks either trying to catch catfish, playing Rook (a cardgame that I always associate with Norweigans because my stepdad's side of the family plays it all the time), and eating. I caught a HUGE fish off the dock but it was too big for the pole I was using and he got away. When I reeled in the line both of the 2 hooks (the whole hook, not just the bait!) were gone. I kept trying and for a while so did the guys on the boat next to us and I told them that if they caught a fish with two hooks in its mouth they had to give it to me. We eventually gave up emptyhanded.

This is my grandma and Kassidy, who everyone thinks is my daughter. Kassidy and I were best friends all weekend. We built lots of sand castles and played with worms and took naps on the boat. She liked it when I wrapped her up in her blanket so she couldn't move, as seen below.

We were there for the Tri-State Regatta (hundreds and hundreds of sailboats go from Michigan City to Benton Harbor and then on to Chicago). Sometimes the boats had their flags up and it was really beautiful.Woo! Going fast on the lake!

The jetskis like it when we go fast from the pier.

You can't see all of the sailboats in this picture. There were so many. You can kind of see the white specks on the horizon, those are the sailboats. Some of them even had colored sails!

This is Luke (and Uncle Bernie) reeling in what would be "the one that got away." We're notorious for coming to the lake and never catching any fish. I think we caught one once but that was it. It makes my uncle feel really bad but that's okay because he's a Vikings fan.So that was my mini-vacation. I finished reading Wicked (definitely weird) and found New Lenox, IL and bought the 3rd season of Arrested Development. Hopefully it was one of the last times that I have to sit in the backseat and watch my stepdad's horrible driving, but probably not. The end.

: (

rachel is gone.

My Broken Family

My family decided to come to Michigan for Labor Day weekend to see my uncle and spend some time on the lake. We left yesterday evening and got here to Benton Harbor (only an hour from Chicago?!) around midnight. I'm sharing a room with my grandma (my step-dad's mom) and after getting ready for bed and watching some CNN we ended up having a long conversation about the Bible and the value of the Old Testament. I got to share with her how sweet it was that I was part of a church and a college ministry in Iowa City that really valued the Old Testament and taught me to love it. It was so great to share that talk with my grandma and realize how God brings together generations and how much we can learn from eachother. It's also really amazing to see how our family interacts. There seem to be a lot of issues going on; even in the fraction of the family that is here this weekend there is divorce, remarriage, children out of wedlock, adoption, stepdads, etc., but we're together here this weekend gathered in love and fun and that's just what it means to be a family. The only instance of bitterness and pain was when we were playing Catch Phrase and Grandma said, "Well you guys will never get this one, you're all too stupid!" Now that's really what it really means to be a family.

I listened to a talk once given by an intelligent and godly man who spoke for a brief time about the sinfulness and pain of divorce and the blasphemy and adultery of remarriage. This is a pretty touchy subject for me because my family is one big mess of divorce and remarriage. There is certainly pain and sinfulness there, but there's also a level reconciliation, unity and love that runs deep. Maybe it's only because of the pain that the love shines through so brightly but it hurts a lot to hear a respectable man say to my face (well, many faces) that my family is outside of the will of God, especially when my relationship with my stepdad's mom is one of the most spiritually encouraging relationships I will ever experience. I think my family stands as proof that God uses our sin to teach us forgiveness and give us opportunities for unity with him and his people that are beyond anything we could ever imagine. And that, my friends, is what it means to be a Family with a capital F.

almost baby time?

I'm spending the night at Alisha's in case she goes into labor! Yikes! I can't wait! Just as exciting (ok a little bit as exciting) is that she got Roller Coaster Tycoon 3! Good thing babies (and new moms) sleep all the time and won't hog the computer games! Now that I think of it, the sleeping isn't really the primary reason that babies don't hog new computer games...

i'm totally raising support for this

A COFFEE PRESS FOR YOUR NALGENE!!!

bodum shmodum!
it even has a pour spout
i mean come. on.

the only problem is that i lose nalgenes like it's my job

www.press-bot.com

...although i also break glass carafes like it's my job