The _______ Life of Brent and Erika

You know those times when you get a mild headache right before bed, and you think, "Oh, this isn't too bad, I'll just sleep it off."? So, you go to sleep, and every time you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom (which on this particular night seems to be happening with uncharacteristic frequency) you wake up to the realization that your head still hurts? And when you wake up in the morning expecting to feel refreshed, you actually feel worse than before you went to bed? Yeah, I hate it when that happens too. And then, you think, "Well, maybe I'm just a bit dehydrated," so you drink 50 gallons of water hoping it will help, but instead of helping you're just hit with a double dose of discomfort: mildly annoying headache and a sloshy tummy. So, after trying to tough it out for more than a few (waking) hours, you decide that maybe you should just take something, but you're at a point in your life when you constantly think, "B...

I love the fill in the blank concept, although I'm often finding that it's a bit difficult to find the right word to actually describe the post. I've decided that subtitles are a good way to get around this. I just discovered TED Talks, which is basically a big conference where people from all sorts of professions and specialties get up and give a talk. The goal is just to share good/inspiring/new/fascinating ideas. Here is one I've really enjoyed: You should especially watch the leopard seal story at the end.

Okay, I don't know that the hyphens are necessary in the title. Oh well. I have two dilemmas in my life that I find somewhat related (symbolically, not actually). I'm hoping that some of you may be able to offer me suggestions to solve both problems (one is more serious than the other). I love to cook. Many of you know this. However, I'm terrible at planning ahead, and I'm often afraid to try new recipes because I hate being disappointed. What this ends up meaning is that I find a few easy, fast recipes that I really like, and I make them over and over again. I rotate recipes on about a two-three month cycle, and right now I'm sick of practically everything I make. Things that I used to like (stir fry, lasagna, bbq chicken, loaded baked potatoes) are becoming repulsive to me because I've just had them too much. Eating is not fun anymore. The answer to this dilemma is obvious: I need some more planning, and I need some new recipes. Okay, on to the second dilemma....

Okay, Brecken, I'm completely stealing an idea from one of your posts. Spanish Fork is not nearly as exciting/loathesome/radically different from anything I've ever known as New York would be, but they rhyme, so that counts for something, right? We have lived here in Spanish Fork for more than a year, and that is sort of strange. What is even more strange to me is that we think we've decided that we might never leave Spanish Fork. So, with no further ado, here are some things I've noticed about Spanish Fork (I suppose to be fair I should say OUR area of Spanish Fork--it's probably not as homogeneous as I'd like to think) in the year I've been here. 1. Almost everyone owns/drives a truck. This is not a stereotype--it's just a fact. 2. I think we might be the only people who don't know how to make our own deer jerky. 3. It appears that at one point there must have been a traveling salesman selling decorative garden wells, and he must have made a killin...

This past Saturday, we celebrated our third anniversary! It's funny how in some ways we think, "No way, we just barely got married!" and in others we think, "Was there ever a time when we weren't married?" In any case, three seems like a good number. The first thing we did to celebrate the day was sleep in until 9 (we have GOT to get on a better schedule--I'm guessing school starting will force us to do this). Then we woke up, and decided to have a breakfast picnic with Burger King food. We went through the drive thru, and everything seemed great until Brent went to pay and... Oh no! No wallet! Luckily we only live a few minutes from BK, so we just had to drive back and get his wallet so we could pay. Yeesh. After that, we went to our favorite little park and had a little picnic. After our picnic, we went home for a while, played the Wii, went out to lunch at La Dolce Vita (best Italian in Provo, which probably isn't saying much, but we REALLY like i...

Brent's the famous one this time, although I'll take credit for giving him the job. The movie that we worked on last summer, The Adventures of Food Boy, is coming out on DVD in October, and we just saw the movie poster for it today. Brent designed the t-shirt that the main character receives in the film, and look how prominently it's featured here! (you can click the image to read the film's blog) Way to go Brent!

I've never had this experience before. Today, I went to create a blackboard course for my class this fall (yeesh, is summer really almost over? Brent starts teaching again next week!), and I selected "Fall 2008", but after looking at it for a second I closed the window and started wondering why it was giving me "Fall 2008" instead of "Fall 2009". I thought it was showing my classes from last year. Is this making sense? For about 2 minutes, I seriously thought that the year was 2009. This year is going much too fast for me. 2007 was a long year, and I feel like 2008 is sprinting just to make up the difference for the relay team of my life. Maybe it's because 2007 was full of changes and now in 2008 it seems like we're in the same place, just a year better at it. In any case, things keep marching on, and it sort of scares me. What also scares me is that I have no idea where I'm going to be at this time next year. I know what I'm hoping f...