The Pomegranate Season

All of a sudden the Thanksgiving/Christmas excitement hit me yesterday. For some reason it came a little late this year. I’d still love for it to be warm outside, but I’m starting to remember why the chill can be nice too. A lot of good, cozy things happen when it’s cold, like hot apple cider and bundling up in scarves and foggy breath. To celebrate last night I bought my first pomegranate of the season – the first time I ever had one was when I stayed at Kristen Thornbrue’s house for Thanksgiving freshman year. Now it’s always connected in my mind to holiday cheer. The next year when I was in London for the holiday I treated myself to a grab-and-go package of pomegranate from Tesco and was perfectly content.

(yes, I did make my sister hold my pomegranate outside so I could take a picture)

Also, happy veterans day. I really wish everyone here wore poppies like they did in London and elsewhere to celebrate remembrance day. I feel like it gets a little forgotten here sometimes, and it really deserves a lot of attention.

Halloween Distractions

I have this thing where I think my brain has reached its limit of studying. And Halloween just provided way too great of a distraction. Here are some of the things we did for the holiday while not doing other (arguably more important, but way less fun) things.

My roommates made some cookies while watching Rear Window and I came home to catch the tail end of it. Brynn, who also didn’t want to do her homework, decided to see if she could make the same faces as the ghosts. Love her.

Naturally there was some dressing up.

And of course we carved some pumpkins!

We (mostly Annie) even made the pumpkin seeds into, well, cooked pumpkin seeds. And they were delicious.

Now for Thanksgiving!

Oh New York, New York

Ok, this is late. Six months late, actually. But better late than never, right?

At the end of May, when I was still in D.C., a bunch of us decided to take a weekend trip up to the legendary New York City. A roundtrip bus ticket is only $20, and I had never been before and always wanted to go, so there was no way I could resist. Plus, all of my lovely journalism friends who did the New York program were still there, so I actually spent pretty much the whole time hanging out with them because I missed them a lot. I got to stay with Chelsea, one of my favorite people in the world, in her awesome apartment only a few blocks from Times Square. Love.

Here, finally, is the trip in pictures. You probably already saw them on facebook, but just pretend like you didn’t. (The photo above is stolen again from Peter. It’s just a fabulous picture. We’re on the top of the Empire State Building. At like 2 in the morning. And a some of the photos below are stolen from Amy. I may have taken one from Mandy too…)

Times square. We wandered through many a time.

As you may have noticed, I love NBC shows, especially 30 rock, so this was a magical experience.

We got to watch two musicals on Broadway: In the Heights and Memphis. They were both excellent. And it was cool because it was just before the Tony’s, and Memphis ended up winning best new musical.

We ate the requisite dollar hotdog and Mongolia cupcake in Central Park. It was lovely.

We also played kid on the big piano at FAO Schwarz and American girl. I may have gone to American Girl twice in one day.

This sign was on a street near China town, and I immediately fell in love with it. And the idea of what it could mean. It’s still the background for my phone.

Amy and I just happened to walk past the New York Times. I really, really, really wanted to go in.

More city explorations.

I loved the whole thing. I’ve heard so many people complain about the size and the noise and all of the people, but I would go back in a heartbeat.

Amy did a way better job of recording this than me, so check it out at her blog in the July section. She didn’t blog on time either, so does that make it a little bit better than I’m late too?

Ikea Ikea Ikea

Last week I had so many blog post ideas that I just did nothing. And then I may have lost my momentum. Oops.

One of the many marvelous things I did was take a trip to Ikea with Annie. Her new apartment came with negative furniture and supplies. I shall allow you to experience our adventure in pictures. Going in Ikea still always feels like an event for me. Maybe its leftover from the days we would drive up as a family to the store in Seattle, before they built the one in Portland.

The children’s rooms were magical. I don’t think we’ve really grown up quite yet… As it should be.

Annie’s favorite kitchen was the mini one.

I made it myself. Bald Eagle. Your favorite.

Sink’s broken.

Well, that’s ok, because that’s why we bought a home with two kitchens.

(Yes, we are movie nerds)

Annie’s afraid of spiders. But I really like this one.

The loot.

And then we made things. I made a table, Annie made a box.

I’m convinced that when I get a place of my own, it’s going to be all Ikea. It’s simple, clean and cheap. A wonderful combination. And it gives me a chance to eat delicious, delicious 99 cent mac & cheese.

Get Out the Vote!

Because I am a total nerd, I absolutely love elections. I always have. So today is a really exciting day for me, and since I’m one of the metro editors I’ll be spending it all in the newsroom. Which is magical. We have the deadline pushed to around 11, so we’ll see how many results we can get in before then! Oh I am so excited. Check The Daily Universe tomorrow for our coverage.

I mailed my Oregon ballot last week, but I have to say that it wasn’t nearly as exciting as last time. While most may assume I say that because it isn’t a presidential election, I actually attribute it to the fact that my mailbox was way less cool. In 2008 I got to stick my ballot in an awesome London mailbox on my awesome London street. This is me mailing my ballot last time:

This year my mailbox was next to a construction site. Not as cool.

Now, the moral of the story is that you should all go and vote right now! Although it’s probably to late to use a mailbox, so do it in person.

Happy Halloween!

I am well aware of the fact that I should be asleep now since I have stake conference first thing in the morning, but I just got home and am 100% awake and ridiculously excited about Halloween. So here is a teaser of the ghoulish activities I’ve been up to.

Annie carved the Harry Potter pumpkin, I carved the happy vampire.

May your day be filled with candy!

An Added Layer

In case you haven’t heard, it’s been ridiculously cold in Utah this week. In an attempt to avoid the chill, I’ve been adding more blankets to my bed every night. Right now I’m up to my comforter and sheets, topped with two more quilts and a blanket.

I think I may have done too good of a job, though. This ended up being a problem this morning, when apparently my bed was just so ridiculously warm and comfortable that I completely slept through five alarms and missed the time I had intended to take a test. Is it bad if I don’t regret it?

Mmmm…. blankets. I want to just stay right here.