Laissez les bons temps rouler

We're not Catholic or anything (Mormons, if you must know), but we celebrated Mardi Gras yesterday. This is mostly because Sam served his mission in Louisiana, and that's the land of Mardi Gras. So I figured it was a great excuse to have New Orleans food and celebrate in our very tame, Mormon way.

I made seafood gumbo. It was hard to pick a recipe because there are so many different types of gumbo out there, but one can always trust Martha Stewart.

 Notice the "Bon Appetite" sign. And you thought I didn't like French.

OK so the masks make us look kind of creepy. OK, so they make Sam look kind of creepy.

We were also going to have bananas foster, but it got late and we were tired. So we'll make them tomorrow.

-Meg

An Update

I guess it took a sick day to force me into writing a blog post finally! Life has been pretty crazy for us Thorntons lately, but we are getting settled.

We moved into a new apartment. I would post pictures but it's kind of scary right now and trust me, it's nothing you'd want to put on pinterest.

We were sad to leave our old place, but we came up on the list for Married Student Housing, so we decided to take the offer and make a change! We love our neighbors and it's nice to be so close to campus. Even though I am done with school, Sam is still going strong.

Christmas and New Year's was great! It was our first as a married couple. That meant a lot of figuring out how to split our time between our families and creating new traditions.

The year 2012 was a crazy year for us. I graduated and got a job, Sam and I got married, and we've already moved twice! (I moved three times this year!)

I know I still haven't posted wedding pictures yet, but I promise one day I will. We got more than one thousand pictures, I kid you not. It's a lot to sort through.

Well, that's a little update! I'm hoping to start feeling better by tomorrow because tomorrow I am turning 22 years old. But whatever.

All the Words!

I know I was really naughty and didn't write a single word on this blog the entire month of November and half of December. But I was writing 50,000 words somewhere else--on a Google document that held my novel. And after that was over, I just had to have a break from social media and crap.

Every year, thousands of writers all over the world participate in National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. That equates to about 1667 words a day, and the end result is novel that's about 100 pages.

I have tried the past two years, but I decided not to finish both years because I was in college and was working 30 hours a week.

This year I have a full time job, but I don't have homework. So I decided that this was going to be the year that I finished.

I wrote every day except one, and it was one of the longest months of my entire life. It was a blast, but it was harder than I ever expected it would be.

I had to give up a lot of things. This blog was one of them. I also didn't write in my journal, or read the book of the month for book group. I barely did house work or laundry and cooked really simple meals. I still found myself staying up late to get my word count in for the day, but I got it done.

I did tweet a lot. Sorry if you follow me and I spammed your feed. It was one way to really get the crazies out when I was really frustrated.

I reached 50,000 words on the last day, at about 9 p.m. The event was pretty anticlimactic  All I wanted to do was just go to bed. And although I got the word count, my novel is not finished. It's close though.


Here are some of the songs that I listened to:







(And like every other Lana del Rey song out there.)



(And like every other Ellie Goulding song out there.)


Anyway, I'm going to write more on here. I'm ready to be back.

Wandering through Streets

I have a great sense of direction. Unfortunately, that does not translate to giving good driving directions, or at keeping myself from getting lost.

Sam has figured out by now that he can't trust me when I say I can get us somewhere. When we drive somewhere I've been but haven't been recently, I really can't be trusted. We usually end up kind of lost and then kind of getting where we need to go. Eventually.

Sam is not your ordinary man, which is why I married him. He has no problem asking for directions. He'll take the GPS, call our parents, or go into a gas station. No hesitation.

I'm all "no, I swear this will start looking familiar in a second" and "just follow the signs and we'll get there."

Living in Salt Lake City spoils you. It's so easy to get around here. Most of the roads have boring names, but at least they follow the grid system religiously. (That's what happens when a city is founded by religious people.)

Syracuse at large is even easier to navigate. The major streets are straight and they are numbered logically. Better yet, there are no east streets. Everything is west, because Syracuse is so western.

The subdivisions are another story. Most have catchy theme-named avenues and streets and cul-de-sacs. I don't think the developers wanted them to be easy to just wander into. They are private residences, after all. Neighborhoods aren't for finding things easily.

I also appreciate Syracuse because it's flat. Although this makes sledding hard, it makes driving a stick shift significantly easier. The first time I drove a manual for a significant distance by myself was in Syracuse. Sam's car is a stick shift, so I've been learning and I'm alright. The steep hill of Salt Lake still terrify me.

So this time when I drove stick all by myself... it was to Brittni's bridal shower. Do you know why this is significant? Because the first time I drove a car alone was going to Brittni's house for a party. True story.

I'll probably spend the rest of my life going places without knowing the way exactly, but just kind of figuring out. Looking at the signs, making U-turns.

-Meg

That time we went to Disneyland! (Honeymoon)

I guess I should tell you about our honeymoon! We'll work backward. I promise, wedding pictures are forthcoming.

We stayed the night at the Little America (thanks to some great aunts and uncles who gave us a great room!) and in the morning, we began our drive to California.

We were met with a storm, which washed away a lot of the window paint and decorations which our friends had so lovingly put on our car. We listened to "Matched" on audio book, and just talked a lot. It was great, but long, since we did the whole drive in one day.

But at long last, we reached Disneyland!

 Yes, we are wearing "Just Married" pins. It was so much fun. Wearing them started a lot of conversations, and almost every worker congratulated us. (Even though sometimes it was an obligatory, bored "congratulations.")

 It was so blasted hot. We carried around a water bottle all day long and kept filling it up even though the drinking fountain water is not cold. It's water. Whatever.

 We ate a fancy dinner at The Blue Bayou. Sam and I both love Cajun/Creole/Southern food. It was so yummy. And it was so fun watching all the people go into the scary depths of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Roller coasters are so much fun, and I'm so glad Sam and I both will go on pretty much anything. We did have some firsts, though. (Please note the random bystanders in the photo. It's part of the DLand experience.)

 It was my first time on Storybook Land. Yes, it took me 21 years to go on this ride. I guess I was always too busy going on hard core rides to go on this simple, adorable Disneyland classic.

Sam went on the teacups for the first time! Usually spinning makes him dizzy...

He's OK. Don't worry.

 We waited an hour and forty-five minutes for the new Cars ride, Radiator Springs Racers. It was worth the wait. It was broken down for an hour, and took fourty-five minutes to fix it. But we met some new friends in line, so it was worth it.

It was a great way to begin our journey of marriage.


Our favorite rides (and why):

Meg--Space Mountain (We went on this about four times), Indiana Jones (just because), Thundermountain Railroad (we rode it right underneath a sky full of fireworks), and Matterhorn (Yeti, even though they don't have the snuggle seats anymore)

Sam--Space Mountain (music makes the ride super fun), Indiana Jones (Such a classic, and just so fun), and Midway Mania (reminds him of me, because I raved about it forever and it's way better than Astro Blasters)

-Meg

83 Muffins

I haven't blog recently because Sam's computer has been broken, so he has to use mine to do homework. And homework is more important than blogging. Sorry.

And then I had the infection from Mordor. It was so terrible and lasted a week. I am so sick of cranberry juice now. I'll leave it at that.

BUT!

I have to tell you all about the time I made 83 muffins. This really happened, a few weeks ago. I know you're asking why. Sometimes unexplained things occur, and you just have to accept them.

There are some hypotheses concerning this incident.

There were like five parties in one weekend that I had to bring things to.

It's fall.

These muffins are delicious. This recipe is fantastic.

Making muffins is relaxing and fun. Why stop.

-Meg

The Climb

On Labor Day Monday, Sam and I went hiking.

It was a difficult hike. We started far too late and erroneously thought that the path that was shortest would be the quickest.

It's unwise to go straight up mountain when there isn't a cloud in the sky and you only have one bottle of water between the two of you, and one of you (who's physically weaker by default because she's a woman) works at a desk job 40 hours a week and is seriously out of shape.

At the end (which I thought would never come) I had feelings that were similar to those I experienced after my half marathon, about a year ago. I'm about as sore, too. I felt proud that I had accomplished such a feat, and I was trembling because I was hungry and thirsty.

I don't know how I would have done it without my Sam. We had to pause about every 10 steps to take a breathers, and I even had to sit down at times because I was worried I was going to vomit or pass out. (Yes, I felt very lame and out of shape.) Sam was patient.

As we were taking one of our rests, where I couldn't hardly talk because my throat burned so badly, we saw a man running up the mountain. The very same trail we had been scraping our knees on as we marched slowly up toward the cloudless sky. And this man is running as if he's actually going down hill. As he passed Sam and I, huddled under the pathetic shade of a lousy bush, he said, "Great day, huh?" and he was not out of breath. I don't know how he did it.



(The group from last year's hike.)

Last year on Labor Day, a group of us did this same hike, except we took a different route that was still very challenging, but nothing compared to this. That hike a year ago was when Sam and I really started talking and getting to know each other. I still remember the spot on the trail where he told me he had five siblings, and he was the youngest.

(The group from last year's hike, again.)

This year's hike was fun because it was an adventure. It wasn't walking through shady forested canyons, but up steep grades, on ridges of dry grass and dust. There were no switchbacks and hardly any shade. The view at the top was great, though.

It was so great being with my honey. (Yes, I'm calling him "honey." This is what happens after bonding experiences.)

-Meg