Greetings from N'awlins- the Home of Comfort Food

Welcome to New Orleans! Where the music is loud, the streets are dirty, the architecture is beautiful, and the food is TO DIE FOR!!

I am going to just skip right to the food. I love comfort food and if I had all of the money in the world, I would fly to New Orleans everytime I was in need of some comfort. We haven't had a disappointing meal yet. Yesterday for breakfast we went to Daisy Duke's where contrary to the name no one was wearing shorts, but where Jake's omelet was so full of flavor it practically ate itself. Then for lunch/dinner we were walking down Canal St. in search of a nice restaurant when a large black man with long dreads came out of a bar and handed us a menu. He convinced us that we were missing out by not eating at the Big Easy Bar. So we tried it. And he was right. My pot roast po'boy and french fries were drenched in gravy that got all over my face with every bite. The bartender kind of laughed at me, but I didn't care. I was in heaven!!

Today was even better! The hotel staff recommended a fancy restaurant called the Oceana with a famous breakfast menu, and on the way there we saw a little sidewalk sign advertising $5.oo breakfasts. At the back of a long dark hallway was a wooden door with a rough old sign that said "best kept secret in New Orleans". I guess so, it was the tiniest little "restaurant" I've ever seen. Walking down that hallway, I was pretty sure we were going to be mugged and shot. We walked up to a counter, where a large black woman yelled at us to go ahead and order. We yelled our order back and then went and sat down at a little table in the middle of the little, windowless room. I have never seen so much food piled onto just one small styrofoam plate in my whole life! Nor has it ever tasted so good. I wish that I had had my camera with me to take a picture of that pancake special. Have I mentioned that I this food is to die for? And all for $4.45 each!

Tonight we were again walking toward the Oceana grill for a dinner that would be about $18.00+ a plate when we passed a little corner joint blasting mexican music. We didn't even look at the name of the place, we just walked right in and proceeded to order the best pork carnita burritos and nachos I have ever eaten. They were juicy, flavorful, and "fantaverous" (fantasically carniverous, to quote Jake). I actually cleaned my plate, and then helped Jake finish off his. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Mr. Apple's Gourmet Apples and bought a cheesecake caramel apple. It's good (but not as good as Z's) and its the perfect way to end this day.

I am going to come back at least 10 pounds heavier, and I don't even care. Every gravy covered, syrup drenched, caramel coated bite is totally worth it!

Amelie

Where to begin??? This movie was … really cute, … really funny, … really clever, … really French. 

I’ll admit that I kind of believe in stereotypes-  if they didn’t fit a majority of people, they wouldn’t be stereotypes right?  Anyway, when I think of how the French are more romantic and less conservative in demonstrating their passions, I will forever think of this movie.   This movie had quite a bit of female nudity in it and a couple of very strange sex scenes.  Which just make it that much more. . .French, I guess.

But it was adorable!

The movie was narrated almost entirely by an unseen author, who explains in his best, most beautiful bed-time-story-telling voice, what all of the characters are thinking and feeling.  Amelie is a lonely, but very clever, little girl who grows into a lonely, but very clever, young woman.  She begins to notice that the people around her are not living their lives to their potential and so she begins to meddle with them in an attempt to make their lives better, (or worse, depending on what motivates them). Some of her results are hysterical!!! Like when the grocer can’t get into his bathroom because she changed his door handle, or when her father’s garden gnome starts to send him pictures from other countries!!   I wish that I was half as clever, or as cute as she was.

Because of the high volume of naked women and the fact that the one guy worked in a porn shop (why couldn’t it have been a gas station or something???)  I would rate this movie a  out of 5.

Mansfield Park Review – Spoiler Alert!

Wow! I loved this movie.  Thank you Laural for recommending it!  Yes, it is true there were a few parts that caused me to raise my eyebrows and say, “Really, folks- I thought this was Jane Austen, not Prime Time television.” But I LOVE anything that is Jane Austen. And the best part is that I haven’t ever read this book.  This is the first Jane Austen story that I experienced via movie before book, but now I can’t wait to read it.  I am going to the library to check it out ASAP. 

Here’s the spoiler part: I loved how cute Edmund is.  He’s so sweet, just like all Austen men should be. I wanted to bonk him on the head (yes, Laural, similar to my feeling about puppies) and tell him to shape up and figure out who he was really in love with.

Best quotes of the movie: “This is 1806 for Heaven’s sake!”

Edmund Bertram: Oh, don't be an imbecile.
Fanny Price: Oh, but imbecility in women is a great enhancement to their personal charms.
Edmund Bertram: Fanny, you're being irrational.
Fanny Price: Yet another adornment. I must be ravishing.

 

Next week’s movie: Amelie – recommended by Jennifer so of course its gonna be good!

Movie Reviews

A couple of people have asked me how my movie project is going, and my sister-in-law, Sara, encouraged me to write about the movies- so here goes. My debut as a movie reviewer. Ha.

 

The first movie from my list was Only Angles Have Wings with Cary Grant.  It was a good movie. Cary Grant wasn’t silly and fall down goofy like he can be. In fact, this was a very serious movie about pilots who take on dangerous missions to deliver mail to remote islands.  Grant plays the boss who gets to decide who flies and when they fly. He often sends his men out into very dangerous runs knowing that they might not make it back.  A woman, Jean Arthur, is on a boat passing through the area and she decides that she wants to stay and get to know the men there better.  I liked the relationship that built between the Grant and Arthur but it was a little far-fetched.  Did women in the 1930’s really get off ships in the middle of the Pacific and just start sticking their noses into other people’s business for no good reason?  I can understand falling in love with Cary Grant – who wouldn’t? But I don’t know if I buy the rest.  It was a sweet movie and I liked it.  I would give  out of five.

The second movie was The Time Traveler’s Wife.  I LOVED this movie. It was sad but it was like feel-good sad. Like the Notebook or Message in a Bottle.  I am a little surprised actually that the book wasn’t written by Nicholas Sparks. It is just the kind of sappy love story that he would write.  I didn’t think I would like it. I started the movie planning on not enjoying it. I don’t like time-travel. It doesn’t make sense to me.  But this movie wasn’t weird or confusing. I absolutely think that Eric Bana is sooo good looking when he gets older. I liked this movie so much that I went out and bought it for my movie collection and then took it to my cousin’s house and made them watch it with me so I could see it again.  It is a movie that I will gladly watch over and over and over.  Especially during times when I am feeling lonely and need a good, sappy love story to fall into. I give it out of five.

The third movie was French Kiss with Meg Ryan.  This movie was silly.  It was classic cute Meg Ryan (Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail) who flies to France to win back her fiance’s love (he fell in love on a business trip) and ends up in a relationship with a jewe l thief who just steals jewelry so that he can buy his own vineyard and live the life of a farmer.  It was a cute movie but it was cheesy and predictable.  Alex came over and watched it with me. Neither of us was blown away, so I think I’d have to give it a out of five.

 

The final movie that I have seen so far is Benny and Joon.  Alex and Cami Sue came over to watch this one with me.  It was really cute!! I had forgotten that it was going to have Johnny Depp in it.  Has he ever played a mentally stable character?  I think I enjoyed this movie a little extra because I was watching it with Cami who kept saying “This is a good part, I love this part!” It was fun to see how much she liked it, and then I liked it too.  This movie is about a man with a mentally disabled sister and the relationships that they make and the way their relationships change.  It was a sweet movie. I give it out of five.

 

I watch a new movie every Monday night. Next week’s movie will hopefully be Mansfield Park.

On Housekeeping

I have a confession to make. I like to vacuum.  I do. I like the way the wheels from the vacuum leave tracks across my carpet, and I like the way that the carpet feels after it has been vacuumed.  It actually might feel just the same as it did before, but in my mind I know it is clean. And I like that. I also like to vacuum because it is so loud, and when I turn it off the house seems really quiet and, for some reason, more peaceful than before.

I also like to wash bed sheets. I like to strip them off my bed and bundle them up to carry to the washer. Maybe its because its a huge load to carry but it weighs next to nothing, so I pretend that I’m really strong and that is why it is easy to carry. I don’t know, I only know I’m weird like that.  I also like the way the sheets smell when I fling them out across the bed, all warm and fresh from the dryer.  I don’t like moving them from the washer to the dryer though, because they are always tangled up and heavy with water.  They never want to cooperate with me and simply move over like the rest of the laundry.  Do not confuse this with making the bed. I don’t like to make my bed. It seems like a waste of time because I’m just going to crawl right back in to  it again in a few hours. I do like the way a bed looks when it is made, but I would much rather climb back into a bed that is still positioned just the way I left it when I was last in the middle of a deep REM cycle.

I hate dusting. Maybe I have to many knick-knacks or maybe I’m just lazy but I just really hate to dust.

However, I like to spray my wooden dining room table with lemon scented furniture spray.  It is an old, antique table and the wood is really dry. When I rub the spray into the wood with my rag, I can see it literally being absorbed by the dry table.  The spray makes it smooth and shiny. Plus it smells good too.

I hate to fold laundry. I want to invent a dryer that will dry the clothes, then fold them into nice neat piles.  It takes me about seven days to complete one load of laundry (sheets being the exception to that rule). Day 1: washing machine. Day 2(sometimes evening of day one, maybe): dryer. Day 3: nothing, the laundry just sits in the dryer. Day 4: dryer again, because now they’re wrinkled. Day 5: oops, I forgot them again. Oh well, into the laundry basket and upstairs to my bedroom. Day 6: the pile in the laundry basket gets smaller, because I usually choose to wear something that is on top of the pile. Day 7: I fold the laundry. But this takes about 2 hours, because I will walk away for even the smallest distraction. Folding laundry is boring to me. I don’t know why.

I wash my windows every other year, whether they need it or not. It’s amazing to me how bright the sunshine always is on the day I decide to wash the windows. I almost need sunglasses inside the house. Now that I have a glass door and a dog that likes to lick it, it gets washed every other month. Well, I’ve only had him for two months, so maybe it will get washed more often. Maybe not.

Sweeping, mopping, and toilet/bathtub scrubbing I am ambivalent towards. Therefore they get done often enough that I don’t feel icky, but certainly not often enough to make me feel like a Martha Stewart of housecleaning. If you come over and use my bathroom and the bathtub is a little stained, or your socks get a little dusty on the bottom just know that I was probably going to get to that within the next day or so, but I just hadn’t made the effort yet. But I was going to. Really, I was.

I probably chose to vacuum instead.

With Family Like Ours

I was talking to my sister today about friendships.  During the course of the conversation she said something along the lines of ‘people with lots of friends, don’t have a family like ours’. I’m paraphrasing, but the general gist of it is true.  I really belong to a great family, and even though I have plenty of friends and acquaintances outside of my family, I always know that family will come first.  (No offense to the rest of you). 

Most of my family lives right here in the Magic Valley. North, East, South, West. It doesn’t matter which way I drive, I’m bound to run into family one way or another.   My mom and dad are less than 20 minutes away –close enough to call when I need anything at all. Dad recently drove over just to fix my closet door. I repaid him with a pie my sister made for me. Speaking of sisters. . .   my sisters are less than 5 minutes away. I have two little sisters-- built in best friends --  even when we fight we still know who to call when we need something. One sister recently got married and so now I have a brother (in-law).   My aunts, uncles, and cousins also live with in 20 minutes drive in several different directions. We have cousin nights once a month and we rarely miss a birthday party for any extended family members.

Some of these pictures are kind of old, but I still love them! 

 

      

 

   

 Don’t forget the IN-LAWS! I have the best in-laws ever.  My mother and father in law are also about a 20 minute drive away, which is close enough to visit and I need to make a point of doing that way more often.  When I got married I also inherited three brothers and two more sisters! Then Tiara went and got married and that made one more brother. Whew!  It’s fun to be part of a larger family. My favorite times are when we are all out at Mom and Dad Schwab's, crashed on the couch, watching movies or playing board games.  It’s comfortable there, and I like it a lot. The only thing that would make it better is if some of them didn’t live in Albuquerque because it is really far away. On the other hand, I’ve never been to New Mexico and now I have a reason to travel there. Thank goodness for Skype. (Which we’ve been using for about a week now, and I have a feeling that it is going to change my life.)

   

      

 

So, not to make a long and sappy post even longer and sappier but I sure do love my family!

To the 116th Armor Cavalry Brigade

   As Southern Idaho prepares to send the Idaho Army National Guard off to another hemisphere of the world, to help wrap up a war on foreign soils, we here at home must remember to thank these wonderful men and women for their service to our country.  They are fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, husbands, and wives.  As individuals they each joined the army for their respective reasons. Now they are joined together with a collective goal of helping to establish peace across the sea.  They have been training and preparing for this deployment overseas for many months. Now it is time for them to begin packing their bags, kissing their loved ones, and flying off to foreign and exotic places. (Mississippi to begin with.)  Here at home we pray that they see interesting sights, but stay far away from any that are dangerous.  We pray that they make a difference in someone’s life, but that they don’t have to sacrifice theirs in the process.

  I have heard of this deployment being compared to sports.  While it’s fun to practice often, there’s not much point in all that practice if you don’t get to play.  Well, our men and women have been practicing and now they are getting ready to play in the big game.  I admire these people who are willing to spend a year of their lives in potentially dangerous situations. Like high school athletes, many of them look forward to the opportunity to prove themselves as the warriors they are training to be.  I, for one, am not the type of person who would look forward to the heat, sand, and stress. But I kind of wish that I was.  At a recent family event, my husband’s sweet grandparents shared with me an antique book in which I found the following poem. It applies to many of the people who are serving in our local National Guard.

A Patriotic Wish

I’d like to be the sort of man the flag could boast about;

I’d like to be the sort of man it cannot live without;

I’d like to be the type of man

That really is American:

The head-erect and shoulders-square

Clean-minded fellow, just and fair,

That all men picture when they see

The glorious banner of the free.

 

I’d like to be the sort of man the flag now typifies,

The kind of man we really want the flag to symbolize;

The loyal brother to a trust,

The big, unselfish soul and just,

The friend of every man oppressed,

The strong support of all that’s best,

The sturdy chap the banner’s meant

Where’er it flies, to represent.

 

I’d like to be the sort of man the flag’s supposed to mean,

The man that all in fancy see wherever it is seen,

The chap that’s ready for a fight

Whenever there’s a wrong to right,

The friend in every time of need,

The doer of the daring deed,

The clean and generous handed man

That is a real American.

Guest, Edgar A. A Heap O’ Livin’. “A Patriotic Wish.” The Reilly & Lee Co. 1916. p112.

Thank you 116th! Come home safely! We miss you already.

Calling All Movie Buffs

In September I am going to begin a year long movie watching project.  I am going to make a list of movies that I’ve never seen before and watch one movie a week for an entire year. I love movies, and I am quite the move buff myself.  My biggest problem is that I can’t come up with a very big list.  I have gone through all of the “Recommended” movies on Netflix and added as many as I could but I’m still coming up short.  If you have recommendations please send them my way.

I am looking for movies that are funny, or romantic, classics or exciting. (For example: Casablanca, Italian Job, You’ve Got Mail, etc.)  I am NOT looking for movies that are scary, violent, or gross (Generation Kill, Terminator).

 

Here is what I have so far:

1. The Time Traveler’s Wife --

2. French Kiss – Meg Ryan

3. Mansfield Park

4. In Love and War—Sandra Bullock, Chris O’Donnell

5. When in Rome—Josh Duhamel

6. August Rush—

7. A Walk in the Clouds—Keanu Reeves

8. Much Ado About Nothing

9. What happens in Vegas – Ashton Kutcher, Cameron Diaz

10. The Glass Bottom Boat – Doris Day,

11. Miss Potter – Renee Zellweger, Ewen McGregor

12. Leatherheads – George Clooney

13. The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer – Cary Grant, Shirley Temple

14. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – Marilyn Monroe

15. Going My Way – Bing Crosby,

16. Definitely, Maybe

17. Leap Year --

18. The Greatest Game Ever Played

19. Love Actually – Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson

20. The More the Merrier – Jean Arthur

21. Love Happens – Jennifer Aniston, Aaron Eckhart

22. Tristan and Isolde

23. Without Love – Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Lucille Ball

24. Get Smart – Steve Carrell, Anne Hathaway

Making progress...

Friends?

Enemies?

Frenemies!

Chapter 16: A Headstone and Final Resting Place

Julia’s headstone has finally arrived.  There were several delays and miscommunications, but it has finally made it! Jacob and I went to the cemetery today to lay some flowers by the little, temporary marker but when we got there we were surprised to find a large, beautiful slab of granite inscribed with a sweet picture of Christ cuddling an infant to His chest. It was exactly like we had pictured it. I cried when I saw the headstone.  It makes everything seem so final, so absolute. Looking at her beautiful name with the two little dates beneath it, brought back all of the memories of that painful, special week. 

         

I think it will be easier to visit the cemetery now that I have a place to actually visit. I’ve always felt silly standing there looking at the tiny temporary plaque and plastic flowers my sisters left there.   I have walked to the cemetery several times a week all summer long but I never stay long at Julia’s plot.  The Twin Falls Cemetery is a beautiful, peaceful place and Sammy and I have spent many hours walking around reading the names on the headstones and imagining stories for the people who are resting there. (Well, I doubt Sammy makes up stories, he’s more interested in chewing on the flowers).  

 

   

May you rest in peace, little one, until I can hold you and care for you again.