And let me tell you...

When it's so early in the morning, blogger is a strange comfort. I know I will be greeted with blogs filled classy outfit posts, cheerful words and nerdy indulgences. I empty all my thoughts into this pensive.

Today I was full of Spanish. It filled me up and I was brimming with all the vowels and soft syllables, the trilled r's and the galloping rhythm of the sentences. I had things to say in class and I said them fearlessly. I felt so wonderful.

Not all Spanish days are like this. Many days I don't understand anything and I can't articulate. I hate not being able to say what I mean.

This weekend is so welcome. Another week at the Chronicle has ended, and we had far fewer difficulties than we had a week ago, when the server had the flu and we had to do some voodoo with wires to make everything come out all right. All good and faithful techies of the world deserve a hug, but ours earned a gold medal of awesomeness.

Today's picture is a darling comic from the archives of the Chronicle--circa 1982. Enjoy.

-Meg

Two words I love today

oscillate

Example sentence: "I osculate between country and rock music."

This word is usually used in scientific and mathematics, which is why I love it. I could have used "go back and forth," but that's too wishy-washy. There's a pattern and deliberate movement between the two categories. It isn't arbitrary.

Actual dictionary definition

fortuitous

Example sentence: "It was fortuitous how I slept through my anthropology class, but it was cancelled anyway." (True story, btw)

Fortuitous is more than just lucky. It's the lining up of fate and tender mercies. It derives from "fortune," obviously, but it's disguised--kind of like how fortuitous things are often not what they seem at first.

Actual dictionary definition

-Meg

Oat bran muffins, and other astonishing things

Healthy and hearty. These muffins are down to earth, lumber jack tough. I tried out the recipe on the back of the oat bran bag I got when I made last week's muffins.

Recipe found here. I used pecans instead of walnuts because I had lots of pecans. I also didn't use dates because I didn't have any.

I'm getting kind of sick of muffins... but everyone loves them and I don't want to give up my goal!


Yesterday was an amazing Sunday, as Sundays usually are. Dinner at the bishop's house, game night that was of course thrilling, and then being serenaded by Griff.

Life seriously can't get much better than this.

-Meg

Happy Birthday, Dad

(Thanks to Steve Petty, my dad's best friend growing up, for this pictures. We sure got a kick out of them.)
Today my dad turned 50! He opened 50 presents and the biggest one was a trip to Hawaii to see molten lava. He's always wanted to go see that.

Here's the poem I wrote for my dad for one of his presents:

If my father had been told
upon my birth that he was to have all daughters,

he would have asked to see it in writing.

Because my father is polite as a pocket-knife--
a one match fire,
no whip cream,
Shakespeare from the pulpit
kind of guy.

He uses Tabasco sauce like he uses jokes--
in everything, almost to make life less clam-chowder white.

A tome in one hand
and a sling shot in the other,
he adventures through the universe.

Even untraveled roads are familiar to my father,
and although the same cannot be said of me,
I know how to work a compass
because he taught me how.

Other notable things happening around "The House:"

So I have more Chrony stories, but those will come tomorrow.

-Meg

Publications of all sorts

This week's muffin recipe is from my first cookbook ever! I have many recipes, but never an actual book. Now I have legit book.

The recipe: Mixed Berry Oat Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup oatbran (This is really hard to find, try looking in the health foods section of your local grocer.)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup buttermilk (That's a half-pint, in case you are wondering.)
2 Tbsp.vegetable oil
1 egg
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen berries (mine were fresh and it was the best.)
powdered sugar for dusting

Cook at 350 degrees, for 20 minutes.

Combine the wet ingredients (except for the berries,) and separately combine the dry ingredients, then put them together. (I'm finding this is super common in recipes. I don't know why the wet and dry ingredients can't be friends.)

When they cool, dust them with the powdered sugar.

From Cupcakes & Muffins published by Weldon Owen.

Big thanks to my new friend Sam who helped me make said muffins.

-Meg

A dose of perspective

That was some game, wasn't it? Go Utes! It was much better than last year's game... I'm so happy we won by a landslide. I love love love love love football.

It was super weird because as I made that link up there I was all: "Holy whoa my life has changed so much in a year!" Because it has. My life really does just keep getting better. (Except for my hair. My hair was awesome and long back then. I want it back!)

Today at church everything was so surreal and wonderful. I felt like I was learning everything anew. A Tongan elder spoke in our ward and I thought of Elder Hill of course, because about half of his companions have been Tongan and he teaches a lot of Tongans who live in Fiji. The missionary talked about how he found the gospel and how much it means to him. Maybe one day one of the kids that Elder Hill teaches will be a missionary. I needed a good dosage of perspective.

Oh, and today I hurt my butt really bad... but that's beside the point.

What I really want to talk about is this:

This is the Rivalry Chrony for last weekend.

We created quite a stir, which is what we do best. I just want to say that I'm glad we have freedom of the press, and freedom to bash BYU. 

OK, so some of the articles were questionable, but we weren't stupid. I laid out news and that was surprisingly controversial (Well, the douchiest college story wasn't a surprise. But besides that...)

I also want to say that I totally made that headlyne up. 

I love my job.

-Meg

Sunflowers

It's a midweek lull and the only response I can give to anyone about anything is "I'm tired."

But I have fresh berries and carrots in my fridge and Katie put sunflowers on our mantle. I am sure I will go to the farmers market again soon.

I have been working on my teaching philosophy and it is more interesting to me than I could have imagined, although I still don't think I have a full grasp of the meaning of teaching.

In fact, I can't tell if I'm grasping anything these days, but I think as I start to get more sleep, things will clear up inside my head.

-Meg