Happy Halloween!

This has been the hottest Halloween of my life. In both senses of the word, as my roommate Hailey would say.

Saturday I surprised Sam and took him horseback riding with my family and Jay. The air was crisp and Smoke understood me, as always. I trust that horse so much. 

Sam had never before ridden. Not in his entire life! I am glad this was remedied. 

The air was crisp, but fresh and light and even though everything was dying, it was a rustic beauty. 

The horse adventure took longer than I anticipated, but after we finished, we ate at The Oaks and headed back down to good ol' SLC. 

We finished our costumes, helped the roommies get ready, and headed off to Halloween madness.

Sam and I were Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, respectively. 

 It was all sorts of fun. And the morning came early, but it was worth it because we had Stake Conference, and it was fantastic. I was in the choir and it was just a lot of fun. I love singing so very much.

We carved pumpkins and I got to meet all of Sam's family. And that was a lot of people (he is the youngest of six).

So I pretty much spent the entire weekend with Sam, and that's saying something about him because usually cannot handle being with people for that long. But it went by so fast and I was so happy the entire time.

I know today ought to be Muffin Monday, but these muffins I've been working on have taken much longer than I anticipated. I started it on Sunday, and it won't be done until Tuesday. I ran out of butter, and my roommate Katie was so awesome and went and got me butter from the store this morning. She's always serving me, it's freaking amazing. Anyway, I ran out of time before work, but this recipe is going to be amazing, I can just feel it.

-Meg

Thriller! And a thrilling, but mindless, account of my favorite dresses

Sam took me to see Thriller on Tuesday night. We had been looking forward to the performance for some time, because I had never seen it and Sam hadn't seen it for two years.

It was a blend of funny, strange and intriguing, drenched and dipped in every flavor of Halloween.

I wore my new pale chartreuse sweater today, and it reminded me of the time I was trying to decide between two prom dresses: one was dark green and one was chartreuse.

The one I got looked like this: (Ya, I'm on the far left, looking weird. I couldn't find the pictures of when I actually wore this to a dance. Anyway.)

Chartreuse is a color that looks like this.

found here
I think the deciding factor in the end was that chartreuse just reminded me too much of the famed "lettuce dress." I don't have a picture of this because it's kind of holy. And I mean that both ways.

Picture a flamenco dress. Not unlike this:

found here

And it belonged in our dress up box. We loved that thing and did silly dances in it, and as fun as that was... there was something inside me that could not bear to be that daring.

Being who I am now, I'd probably go for it, but then as a teenager, I was all like, "I'll take the poofy dress!" Even though my mom always said that guys like girls who wear skinny, tighter-fitting dresses better. (Mom? Why you be so cool/weird/awesome?)

But the dark green dress does have beading that somewhat resembles the White Tree from Return of the King. And I do love that big green dress...

Then it was Lindsey's turn to get formals! Yay! And she got a light green dress, which I have never had a chance to properly wear. But if I ever do, I can remember the skinny chartreuse dress I never got.

Now that I can finally (almost) spell chartreuse after writing this whole mindless torment, I'm going to get back to living my wonderful amazing existence. Please and thank you.

-Meg

More falling

I am falling in every direction--behind, asleep, in love...

Random things:

The new Coldplay album is fantastic. Familiar but so new and beautiful.

This weekend we went to a corn maze. That meant lugging all my Salt Lake city folk up to the edge of the boonies. I am pretty certain we all had a blast... especially in phase 3.

I got to my friend Alexis! And I hope to see her again before she leaves on her mission to Sacramento Cali.

Utah tripped over itself. Our football team is having issues. I feel bad for them, poor little beat up kids. That game was so boring. Even if we loose it should be exciting.

This Muffin Monday is one of the best.

I thought it was going to be awful, because I misread the recipe. So ya, kind of double it and add a lot more flour.Trust your gut and ask your roommate for help if you don't know how to fix your recipe. It's good. Imagine a pumpkin roll in a cup. Yup.


I am the luckiest girl in the world.

-Meg

Can I just ramble for a little bit?

Today I was thinking about my life. I think about my life a lot, especially since living my life is something I do every day, even if I don't do it well. I guess I'm not super bad at life. But how do you succeed at life? What's success, really?

I turned in my graduation papers today. So have I pretty much won the game?

Oh wait, I thought winning the game was getting married... right... better get on that now.

Hey, am less cynical than I used to be. I think it helps that, if my calculations are correct, I will be the first person from my high school class to earn a bachelor's.

I swear I just got to college. I'm amazed at how many things and people from high school are still relevant. I think it's because so many of my friends are away on missions, so I feel that all those relationships are frozen, even though I know it's not true. People will come home and be weird and different. Things will be changed and I'm sure we'll have this awful realization that we have been changing all along and we didn't realize it.

So I'm usually always tired, right? And I don't like it when people are like "you look tired." Uh thank you? But these week I was legitimately tired. Exhausted. I don't even remember being this tired doing a play and that's saying something. I'm talking tired like my mom calls me 17 times and I don't hear it.

It's my week-long, fall break hangover.

I was also thinking about how organized I used to be. I still use a planner, but I find myself winging it every day.

Spoilers! Speaking of winging it... that's a clue to who I'm going to be for Halloween.

Has this post been enough gray goop for ya'll? Hope so, because I just needed to be rambly today.
But it's a good thing I'm stopping because I think my carpeltunnel/tendonitis is coming back in my hand. Ahh.

-Megan

Turning, turning

It's still autumn and I'm still listening to country music, which is usually a summer sort of thing.

The fall in Utah has been a rich cacophony of color and light. I cleaved unto fall break and now I am back into the thick of school.

Now is the time for turning leaves... I'm finding myself doing that once again. Right now I'm reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

Pumpkin muffins are called for, even if the cute liners stuck to the bottoms. These are "healthy pumpkin muffins." Next week I will make less healthy muffins...

Recipe found here.
Sorry it was so late... I was up until 3 a.m. last night finishing my crossword. For those of you asking, yes, I will post it on my blog so you can all torture yourselves with it.

-Meg

Word Gymnastics

The limited spelling choices in English is wonderful to one who is doing a crossword puzzle. But for one who is constructing a crossword puzzle, it is a most frustrating obstacle.

I am in crossword puzzle class, and for my midterm I have to make one. I'll post it on here after I turn it in on Tuesday. It is hard, and I'm using software to do it. How constructors did it prior to the computer is a mystery to me.

I often wonder how anyone did anything without computers. I know we survived before, but seriously, how did you design a paper, or record music, or write and edit novels? How did people communicate?

Ya I know I sound like a true Generation X here. Sue me.

In other news, I bought two pairs of boot/shoes today, and I'm especially excited about my Merrills (see above). This means hiking and walking in the snow without discomfort! Bring on winter! (But not too fast... )

-Meg

p.s. did you see how many parentheticals were in that last paragraph? Geez louise!

Another wonderful weekend

On Friday I got my iPod back! Miracle of miracles, I tell you. The guy who found it sent me an email that he had it, and I was able to pick it up from him.  

He just said that he had lost stuff before and he would want someone to return it to him.  

Yes, the golden rule works and there are honest people in the world. Hallelujah!

How we celebrated:

And watched "The Village." That is one of my most beloved films.

Saturday was the day of hell, and I mean that literally because the ASU Sun Devils destroyed us. We were happy birthdayed to the ground!

At least the first half was pretty exciting...

Now, for what you were all waiting for!

Muffin Monday!

Recipe here

Except I actually did have caraway seeds, so I used those instead of poppy seeds. And we had lots of chives, so I through some in too. And we didn't have milk because milk day is Monday, so I used half and half instead. 

But ya, they were awesome with our Sunday dinner yesterday.

Happy fall break, everyone! (Well, if you don't have a fall break, just pretend you do.)

-Meg