cooking.

I think I'm getting better. I made chicken three times this week and it worked like a charm every time. Of course, a little Sweet Baby Ray's never hurt, either, but seriously--I can do this! My roommate thinks the chicken kept burning because of the pan I used on the stovetop, which is comforting that maybejustmaybe it's not just me.

So without further ado, here's my failproof chicken:
1. Brine chicken in salt and sugar.
2. Put chicken in pan. Cover halfway with chicken bouillon, a few teaspoons of olive oil, and any seasoning in the world.
3. Cook at 500 degrees for 20 minutes.
4. Cover for 5 minutes. If you want.
5. E.A.T.

Impressive, yes?!

On another note, Brianna and I made sugarless, oilless cookies last night. Uhh what? Yeah. Fer real. Thank you, Pinterest. The recipe's here but the truth of the matter is, I'd only make them if you (a) have not made or consumed cookies in months and months and have most likely forgotten what they taste like, (b) really enjoy natural food, or (c) want an excuse to eat a few chocolate chips so bad that banana-sweetened cookies sound good to you. Which category do I fall into, you might ask? Definitely a.

Bri and I decided we might make them again (read: I decided I might make them again), but we would never, ever make them to feed to other people. Amen.

But if you decide to give it a shot.. we replaced the oil with applesauce, and used gf flour in place of almond meal ($11 a bag? I think not.), and rolled them in coconut, and sprinkled the top with nutmeg. And i thought they were pretty yummy.

thursday

Today's been an unproductive day. I tried. Really i did. But it just plain wasn't happenin. And now Bri's been over here all night and we've gotten exactly nothing done, unless you count me painting her toenails a little color i like to call funfetti cupcakes, and her fingernails a huge goopy mess of black sparkles.

It's seriously bad. I suck at painting fingernails, it turns out. I can tell because Bri just kept saying "Yeah, sure, why not? Add another layer of sparkles." Clearly she had stopped caring because it was a lost cause.

And this is how much my sister likes me: "If people ask about my nails tomorrow and i tell them you're ten years old, would you be offended?"

it has been quite the weekend.

and i'm only glad that it's over because that means i am going home in a mere four days. but anyhow.

my weekend really began on thursday afternoon, because that was the last day of classes. woohoo. or something like that. thursday afternoon, i found a solution to sell my contract. i had been praying so hard that it would sell that i forgot that two girls had already told aubrey that they really, really wanted the apartment..they just had to sell their contracts. thursday afternoon, a thought popped into my head. why don't i just buy one of their contracts? and boom, just like that, we had 36 hours to be moved out of the apartment.

so friday was spent moving out, until that got too boring, and then friday was spent christmas shopping. we decided jason does not exactly belong in forever21 skinny jeans (surprise?)...

saturday was equally productive. the act of moving out was completed, studying was accomplished, and christmas shopping was worked on.

sunday the most wonderful gingerbread house was made, and ham and mashed potatoes and all sorts of deliciousness.

and then last night i slept in bri's twin-sized bed with her in her dorm, and slept in until 7:30 because i didn't have to (a) eat breakfast, or (b) walk 15 minutes across campus, and it was fantastic. absolutely wonderful.

this morning the bookstore filled our taffy jar up (SO YUMMY) and then i followed the example of my baby sistah and made a schedule for the rest of the week. nottttt too excited

so, that's that. four days and i'm home free.

my little sister is concerned she's too intimidating for me..

this is the text conversation i had with bri today after she took the stats test, which i am going to take tonight.


which translates to, congratulations on another 100% (or very, very near 100%) on yet another test, little one.

but most of the time brianna's great, particularly at football games.

this was a few weeks ago, or whenever it was that we kicked san jose's butts. it was the best game ever. it started with brianna making this face, over and over and over again.

from there, it could really only go downhill. we proceeded to rhyme every. single. thing. we said for the next.. oh.. half hour. people like us a lot. not.

what i like best right now about bri right now, though, is that nobody blinks twice when (a) we pretend that we're twins (is it immature that we sometimes do that?), or (b) i use her ID card to buy tickets.

gosh we're cool.

randoms

french fries
as a child, i hated ketchup. loathed it. for example, i loved sloppy joes until i found out they had barbeque sauce in them and barbeque sauce has ketchup. and then one day we were at red lobster at one of those big round tables, and next to us was the table we always called the "laughy table," that really, really loud table which seemed to always be right next to us, and when my mother wasn't looking i dipped my french fry in ketchup real quick-like and popped that baby in my mouth and fell in love. and ever since, i love my ketchup. lately i eat a lot of french fries (or as my mother calls them, french bakes, because they're definitely not fried and even more delicious) because they don't make my tummy hurt. however, something i really, really don't like is running out of ketchup. i would rather have six times too much ketchup on my plate than try to get enough ketchup on my last fry. gross.

other random thoughts of the morning include:

bee
i wish that brianna's phone wasn't broken. at home, we have a terrible habit of walking down the stairs after getting ready and realizing that we are a) both wearing the same shirt, b) both wearing the same jeans, and/or c) both wearing our hair in the same way. and having class together three times a week means it's important that we check on these things with each other. i'm wearing a shirt that i own in red and she owns in pink. i'm nervous.

where is fall??

i miss my chelsea (and also this sweater. i wish i was wearing it right now.)

is it the weekend yet?
my level of excitement for the weekend is through the roof. this last weekend was fantastic. football game, moneyball, finishing my entire to-do list, A-'s on both of my tests, the park, church, relief society broadcast, long talks with my mother and emails from my father, lemon bars, source code.. perfection. but now i'm ready for next weekend. and quite frankly i think five more days is much too long.

this is what i'm thinking

sometimes i just look in the mirror after waking up half an hour late and am genuinely impressed with my ability to make myself look presentable in fifteen minutes. today was one of those days. good work, amy.

last night cristina and brianna came over and we made pizza. i think they're fantastic. really, just wonderful. so that was lots and lots of fun.

and then i went to the movie warrior.hello best movie ever. (and no, i am not just saying that because of the high volume of ripped shirtless men. promise.) it was just really, really great.

also, i'm not allowed to chew gum anymore, on account of my stomachaches. considering i regularly go through four or five packs of gum a week, i'm foreseeing a problem. wish me luck on that one.

and one more thing. i walk into work today to find this on my desk:

thank you, brent. heaven help me.

today is

today is: the first day of classes.
my tummy hurts. i can't tell if it's because i'm, like, five years old and still get nervous for the first day of school, or if it's just my usual tummy ache. but really now. enough is enough!

today is: paige's last day in utah.
we've had a grand time, complete with crafts, shopping, drives, and long talks.

don't mind the tie-dye. i literally (literally) only wear it to bed.

today is: banana bread for breakfast.
can't wait until it's pumpkin bread season, and i wish i hadn't eaten all of the zucchini bread my mother brought me so quickly.

today is: not a day to wear new clothes.
i'm rocking a white v-neck and skinny jeans. cause i am an advocate of the "i'm-not-in-middle-school" look, which requires waiting until the middle of the first week to wear new clothes. which is a shame because a) mom and bri and i went on a shopping spree at gateway on saturday and it was the best. day.evahhhh, and b) brianna now lives in my town, which means my closet is basically twice as big. (DON'T BE MAD THAT I SAID THAT, BEE!!)

today is: the day aubrey probably comes home!
absolutely fantastic, i've missed that girl so hard over the last week while she's been working.

today is: a happy day.
i love being happy. and i woke up this morning with the sun streaming through my window, and even though it was 6:45, i was happy. maybe happy isn't the right word. maybe i'm just..content.

yummy.

so bri and i have this thing. it's called making s'mores. we love those things. and every time i come home, we do our very best to not forget to make s'mores.

if you grew up making s'mores in the microwave, you need to get that out of your life. fer real. because the best part of ovens is the broiler. and if you aren't taking advantage of that.. well.. that is just too bad.

so this is what you need to do. get out your broiling pan. and your graham crackers and marshmallows and guittard chocolate chips. (this is important. oven s'mores are way better with chocolate chips than chocolate bars. and guittard chocolate chips are way better than any other chocolate chips.)

make your s'mores.

then put them in the oven on broil. please watch them veryyy carefully because burnt oven s'mores are just as bad as burnt campfire s'mores.

and when the marshmallows are brown, pull them out and flip them over.

(and yes, the ideal time to eat s'mores is right after running, despite what you may think.)

when that side of the marshmallow is brown, take your s'mores out of the oven and pour a glass of milk.

get in mah bellyyyy

sunday ramblings

what have i been doing on this sunday?

well, i will tell you.

i have been stalking brianna's new roommates with her.

extensively.

we're talking facebook, blogs, mother's blogs, and twitters.

and it has been wonderful. i like them already. not that my opinion matters. but, ya know, it does.

also, brianna's brilliant plan to not be the-freshman-with-a-car-that-everyone-in-the-dorms-takes-advantage-of is to not tell anyone she has a car. i wish her luck with that one, and hope it lasts longer than the three days i anticipate it will last.

i like bee. people think we look alike.

example: this is the text i got this morning: "hey tell me what color dress you're wearing so i can tell you apart from your sister."

so that's cool. cause i'm pretty sure we don't look alike. but whatever. you be the judge.

also, brianna has a new app. it's called "shave me." it's in the top 25 free apps right now. and i would just like to say: eww. it shocks and disgusts me that enough people have "shave me" that it has made it to the top 25. like, seriously. eww.

hi there.

one day last summer, brianna, mom, and i were driving home from the cities. for some reason, we stopped at the apple place. i can't remember why. but we found a rack of cards.

they. were. hilarious.

they were the most awkward, strange cards i have ever seen. so we bought some. and brianna saved hers for a rainy day.

today in the mail, i got a letter from my baby sister.

i love getting mail. love, love, love, love it.

but this was definitely in my top five favorite letters i have ever received.

i'm still laughing.

sexy chunk.

that is what i call my baby sister. chunk. it's a long story. she calls me chunk, too. somehow it rolls off the tongue more easily than "bri."

yeah, we don't really get it either.

bri is fantastic. mainly, of course, because she is funny as heck. but also because i frequently walk into her room to find her sitting on her bed doing homework. which is fine...

...but if you're secretive, you can catch her simultaneously checking herself out in the mirror. it's wonderful.

and today we worked out. which, in the winter in minnesota, usually consists of any combination of the following three things: the weight machine, the elliptical, or workout dvds.

with brianna, it usually means workout dvds. she starts by pulling her sweatpants up ridiculously high. (and i mean ridiculously.) then she gets out her weights and starts moving. and, of course, talking back to the workout dvd people. "work it! work it!" they say. "iiiii'm working it!" she says back. "you should feel this one in your hamstrings," they say. "i feeeeel the burn!" she says.

it makes it very, very, very difficult to stay upright and refrain from laughing.

and that, my friends, is why i like my little sister.

so.. i got my hair cut...

one day, there was a little girl who wished she was a boy. and so she said to the lady that cut her hair, "brenda, i want my hair cut like a boy."

so brenda cut her hair like a boy.

that little girl loved that boy haircut. and that girl's little sister loved that boy haircut. so she got one too.

only somehow she looked even more like a boy than her older sister did. one day at church, a real boy said to the little sister, "how come are you wearing a dress if you are a boy?" the little sister cried. and so the little sister grew her hair out and looked like a girl again.

but the big sister wanted to look like a boy. one day while she was playing at the park, some teenage girls said, "let's let this little boy go first." and they were talking about her.

she was thrilled.

eventually, she grew out of that stage, and so did her hair. she decided she loved being a girl and never wished again that she was a boy.

but she still didn't love her hair long.

and then the little girl was grown up, and she was getting married in only three and a half months. she went home for christmas and she went to the hair cutting place. and brenda said, "what would you like today?"

and the girl said, "just a trim, please."

but then as brenda talked and talked and washed the girl's hair, the girl couldn't stop thinking about having short hair. because even though she was getting married so, so soon, and even though she always had wanted long hair at her wedding, that girl really, truly hated not having short hair.

and so she told brenda to cut it off.

and so brenda did.

i'm only laughing because i can't hold my smiles in

well i'm back.

and i like it even more than before. :)

my sisters and i drove out last week. it was such fantastic fun. as usual, we took almost no pictures. maybe someday we'll learn.

we honestly thought this was the funniest sign in the world when we were little..

actually, we still do.

okay, fine. only i still do. whatever.

when i got to idaho, i had it all planned out what it would be like to see zack again. but as always, he had something else in mind.

i like scavenger hunts.

and then on monday zack and i went to bear world, thanks to my wonderful grandma, since i didn't get to see any at our cabin. it was such an adventure. especially the bear cubs. they were adorable!!

i finally got my room all set up just how i wanted it. today i'm going to make a bulletin board with my brand new hot glue gun from cristina. and i'm going to go buy a pet frog with kylie! and i am just sosososo happy to be back. and i adore ann and kylie. i missed them so much but i didn't even realize exactly how much until i saw them again.

classes start tomorrow, and so does work. which i was excited about, but the truth is that i'd rather just not go to school or work and hang out with zack all day. ohhh wellll. i have to get my educaaaationn. plus one of my classes is elementary early field experience which means i get to go to the schools and wear a nametag that says miss cragun. cool, huh? i think yes.

i am just on top of the freaking world.

"how did YOU end up on bottom?"

i just read a quote.

"life isn't short. it's the longest thing you're ever going to do."

true.

i seriously like that quote. a lot. because life isn't short, but the experiences in it are short. that's why one of my biggest goals this summer is to just live in the moment. too often i've spent my life wishing time wouldn't pass so quickly, or wishing that the days on the calendar would fly past faster. but when it all comes down to it, a minute is sixty seconds, every time. and time will pass whether i want it to or not, so living in the moment is my only logical option.

it's been a pretty good week, all things considered.

i slept with brianna when my cousins were here, and it made me realize that sleepovers never, ever, ever get old. we laughed so hard we fell out of bed, which made dad come running up the stairs to check on my little cousins in the next room..but oops, that was just us falling out of bed :-/ no big deal. we still can't figure out how she ended up underneath me, since by all logic she should have crashed on top of me. so that's the puzzle of the week...

i lost my waterskiing mojo but i'm hoping it'll come back asap.

dad crushed his foot under the boat so that was scary but luckily it's not broken..

we went biking in minneapolis yesterday. what an incredibly beautiful city. there are lakes everywhere you look, even in the middle of the city. looking at sailboats on a pristine lake in front of green, green trees in front of the skyline is like nothing else. i like this state. except it's hot. and humid. so that's a buzzkill.

so hot we'll melt your popsiccccle

i sincerely believe that there is nothing more beautiful than a minnesota lake. we went to lake washington today, which is our usual lake. the water isn't crystal clear and every once in a while there are too many boats per square foot. but the trees are such an incredible, vibrant green, and the sky is blue and the clouds are nothing short of picturesque and i love that lake. no waterskiing, but we read and went tubing (for a very short period of time) and ate rainbow twizzlers (which i think it is safe to say absolutely nobody recommends) and it was a good time even though it was hotter than hades. probably literally.

bee and i went running after the lake. it was a fantastic run. the kind that is effortless. the kind where my legs could just keep going and going. the kind that i breathe in and out and in and out and it's not a chore, it's just breathing. the kind that makes me remember exactly why i run. it was great fun.

today i'm just thankful. is that okay, even if it's not thanksgiving? i'm thankful for brianna. i'm thankful for my mom and dad, who sometimes fall asleep holding hands on the back of the boat. i'm thankful for cristina, who is one of my very best friends. i'm thankful for ann and paige and kylie and abel. i'm thankful for zack, who didn't even say anyways the last time i said anyhow. i'm thankful for mint cow tracks ice cream and hot summer days and new cameras and the book of mormon especially mosiah. i'm thankful for driving with the windows down and tithing and air conditioning and sleeping in my own bed for six weeks. i'm just thankful for everything, for the big things and especially for the little things.

"lllaaaaamaaa! it's time for breaaakkfassst..."

i finally found someone who loves the zoo as much as me. of course, she's five, but that's not really the point. brianna and i took the little girl she nannies to the petting zoo today and we just had the best time. except that the llamas there are the strangest looking llamas i have ever laid eyes on so that was concerning.

and bri told me about her trip to tonga for about six hours this morning and it made me a little nostalgic for peru last summer. but mostly it made me glad that i have a baby sister who can lay on her bed with me and ramble on for hours and hours and just have the most fun ever.

grades were posted today and i'm mostly pretty happy about them.. beyond irritated with my spanish teacher who doesn't believe in grades so he just randomly posts grades at the end of the semester and viola! that's what you get. suuper bothersome. but that's okay, i never have to see him again..

it's official, i'm never seeing my rav4 again... sad, huh? i'll miss it. especially cause i like driving stick, a lot. buuut i guess that's okay cause i'll get a new car with wayyy better gas mileage and a functional transmission and a good engine. so that will be a nice change.

i miss my job!!

ummm.. i guess that's mostly all.