White Enchiladas

Nettie, from one person who "lives to eat" to another, this recipe is for you. This is the one we talked about in VA.

White Enchiladas

1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp pepper
2 tbs margarine/butter

Cook these in saucepan over medium heat until onions are tender. Stir in:

3 tbs flour
8 oz. sour cream
2 cups chicken broth
4 oz. diced green chilies

Stir frequently until thick and all ingredients are blended well. Remove from heat and stir in:

1/2 cup Monterey Jack cheese

You will also need:

1/2 cup more of Monterey Jack cheese
2 cups cubed or shredded chicken
flour tortillas (10-14 depending on the size)
sliced black olives (optional)
chopped green onions (optional)

Reserve half of the sauce. Roll tortillas with cubed chicken and a spoonful or two of sauce, and arrange in 9" x 13" pan. Pour reserved half of sauce over rolled tortillas in the pan. Sprinkle remaining cheese, black olives, and green onions on enchiladas. I've also sprinkled chopped tomatos on top and it was good.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

My 7 Favorites

Since apparently these lists of favorites don’t include people, I will leave them out. This is probably a good thing because people might fill my whole list otherwise.

Doing things well
This precludes everything. If I can do something well, it becomes my favorite, either temporarily or long term. And if I do that same thing at another time and it doesn’t meet or exceed my expectations, I don’t like it. Call me a perfectionist, but I love doing things well. Isn’t there a quote like “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” It’s something like that. That’s probably the unconscious motto to my life. I want to do things well, and when I can, I’m happy.

Warm Things
This one is true especially when I am cold, which is frequently. Some of my favorite warm things are cozy sweatshirts, hot tubs, slippers, soft blankets, warm husbands to cuddle with, hot cocoa, puppies, just a little bit of time basking in the sunlight, my bed, fresh baked bread… this list could go on and on.

Lindstrom
Alisha has Lake Tahoe, I have Lindstrom. My grandparents own a cottage on a lake in Minnesota which has long been the refuge of every one of their children and grandchildren for pleasure, good company, but foremost for relaxation. Being there is almost like a drug. It’s completely addictive. It has the power to make you believe you don’t have a care in the world.

Good Music
I can completely lose myself to good music, it doesn’t matter the genre. My love if it can border on obsession. I crave certain songs. When I’m listening to a particularly great song, I stop everything I’m doing and revel in the chord progression, the lyrics, the passion, the excitement. Sometimes I sing with it, sometimes I dance. It can get to the point where I’m annoyed if someone tries to talk to me during one of these trances. A few of my current favorites include: Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia,” Ella Fitzgerald’s “Blue Skies” from her album Pure Ella, Mika’s “Grace Kelly,” Coldplay’s “Shiver,” and Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor by Tchaikovsky.

A good yoga class
Normally it’s better when I’m not teaching it so I can focus on my breathing, but I’ve had several really good classes that I’ve taught, too.

Learning
Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water because I’m not in school anymore. I have a question and the only way to answer it accurately is to research it, right? I rent books and books on random topics of the week, month, day… whatever catches my fancy. I’ve even found myself outlining essays on my topics. I’m currently enthralled with political topics. I’m reading George Washington’s biography “His Excellency,” and a textbook about the constitution, and I’m writing an essay (yes, I’ve actually started it, but my chances of finishing it are probably slim since there is no point to it but my own entertainment) about generational apathy, specifically in voting and political involvement. Yes, I’m a nerd.

Cooking
Some people eat to live, and some people live to eat. I’m one of the latter. There is so much junk out there that really doesn’t taste good. Cooking my own fresh food has become a favorite thing of mine. Sometimes I lose a little motivation when I don’t cook things well (see number 1), but I keep trying.

Comments on my blog
I know this is number 8, but I had to include this. Sometimes I write blogs just to see how many comments I can get. Our record number of comments was on one of those blogs back in December. Remember the discussion about Hollywood couple nicknames? If I have continual access to the internet after I write a blog, I check hourly to see if anyone has read it yet. Comments make me feel like people care! I’m not a very good commenter, but I’m so happy when I get them. Thank you all for your comments!

So those are my seven favorites. Now I want to hear the seven favorites of Kristen, Nettie, and Brianne, when you have time.

One of my greatest fears

On Sunday I pinpointed one of my greatest fears. It's definitely not top on the list, but it's probably in my top ten. This fear made Scott laugh, and frankly, I probably would laugh if this was someone else's fear, too. My fear is that I will cut my fingers while peeling potatoes. I want to make it clear that I don't fear peeling potatoes, just cutting my fingers while peeling potatoes. This fear results in my taking four times longer than anyone else to peel potatoes. I can do it fine, but I'm very slow and meticulous with every single peel to make sure my fingers are far out of the way.

I just thought I'd share that with everyone. In the future, if I'm at your house and you need me to peel your potatoes, just know what your getting in to.

Home Means Nevada

I love Fallon. I love it even more now that I have lost the major reason for returning as mom and dad have moved to UT. I now get to choose to remember the best things about Fallon and have sweet sentiments of a place where I spent my formative years.

Some of my favorite things about Fallon are:

Tumbleweed Road. I mean, c'mon! Is there anything which screams dusty small desert town more than a dirt road named "Tumbleweed"? I recall a neighbor of ours making a 'tumbleweed' man one winter for Christmas when Fallon had no snow.

The view from the top of Rattlesnake Mountain. Really I just get a kick that something like this can be called a 'mountain'. I have spent many hours up here just staring out onto Fallon. Sometimes the view is more picturesque than other times, depending on the time of year.

Historic Maine Street. From my recollection, Fallon's main street is one of very few in the nation spelled "Maine". I'm not sure why, exactly. Perhaps everyone just really liked lobster. Anyhow, I love the theater and going there with my friends for midnight screenings of the newest release and wondering why the theater didn't look like the pictures of the historic theater they had on the walls.

Lizards. There were always lizards on the back wall of the house if you knew where to find them. This one was really easy to find once everything was out of the way. He was a big one, too: about 6-7" long head to tail.

Most of all . . .

I loved home in Fallon.

However, there are some things I won't miss about Fallon:

The cartoon high school mascot. (I think I can joke about this for a lifetime)

Rotten-egg water. Enough showering in essence of sulfur.

Burn-my retina-and melt-my-hair hot August sun. I know we get this just about everywhere, but sometimes it seemed especially bad in NV.

Smoking and mini-casinos in every business. I'll never forget the old Raley's and Safeway markets when we first moved in and needing to hold my breath to get through the doors on the way in and out because of the fog of cigarette smoke. (Now I get to ruin my lungs with the blessed inversions every winter instead!) It caught me off guard again last weekend to see slot machines and video poker in the airport and the gas stations. I had forgotten about them.

Oh well, despite all this, I will miss you, Fallon.

Poetry Corner

In light of all this Paris Hilton media frenzie, I found a poem that I can sympathize with:

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one's name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!

-Emily Dickinson

curly2/curly + straight

Scott has been growing out his hair because he can, but now he's getting sick of it and wants to buzz it all. Before the big buzz, though, we asked Sarah if she would straighten it for him just for a night. Here is the before picture:


Now please vote on your favorite after picture. This isn't a very good angle, but this is the Kevin Bacon Do (it really looked like Kevin Bacon's hair from Footloose):


This is the Christian Bale do:


This is the Boarder Do:

A Good Hike

Today Scott and I went on our first hike in a long time. We went on a trail we'd never been on or even heard of. It started on a very steep uphill. The path was really fine dust and was surrounded by mountain oak that looked like old bony arms reaching towards the sky. Slowly the landscape started changing until we were mostly surrounded by aspens with a grassy floor. It was a very pretty trail. Here the path was a little more rocky, not as dusty, and we saw several wildflowers. These little orange butterflies were everywhere.


Suddenly the aspens opened up into the large meadow in the first picture. There was a little creek to the east running parallel with the trail. It was pretty cool. On our way back we took a different fork of the trail and found ourselves surrounded by tall pines.


I think my very favorite part of the whole trip was the head of the trail. We parked by this little reservoir, which was very crowded with eager fishermen, but very charming. I want to go back again tomorrow. I think I've found my favorite place in Utah.