Cinco de Mayo

It's one of my favorite holidays. There's absolutely no rhyme or reason why Americans celebrate Mexico's Independence Day...except that it gives us an excuse to eat tacos and burritos and break pinatas and light Virgin Mary and Jesus candles. Viva Mexico! Our Mexican meal was fabuloso! Olivia put her own twist on tacos by substituting grated potatoes for meat, which I much preferred. Mixed with sauteed mushrooms, peppers and onions and topped with fresh avocado and mango salsa, you'd never even miss the beef.


This is Tyler. He and I put this little shin dig together at the last minute. Yes, this is the Tyler I'm dating. He's 7 years younger than me. Perhaps he's mature for his age, or perhaps I'm just immature for mine. Either way, we don't feel the age gap much....unless we start talking about high school music...which would be elementary school for him. Then it feels a little weird, so we don't talk about that much. :p

Olivia and Matt cookin' up tacos!

After dinner entertainment....beating the crap out of this pinata. Keva got to go first because she had the most pent up aggression in the group. All I can say is that Tyler was either brave or crazy for being on the other end of that stick with a pissed off, blindfolded, hammer swinging woman chasing after him!

Mexican candy....straight from the Mexican mall just down the street from me. What a great discovery!

Here's a few clips of us experimenting with Mexican candy. If you've never tried hard mango candy with chili centers, well, now you'll know why.....

Did I mention my boyfriend is really mature for his age.....???

Swell Season

I almost missed this show! It would have been such a pity, too. The show sold out before I got on the ball and secured a ticket, but yesterday it was on my mind so much, I decided to get on Craig's List and see if by chance someone was selling one. Sure enough, I found one! I was so happy.

The show was incredible. I was mesmerized the entire time. For those who haven't seen the movie "Once" I encourage you to take a looksie at it. It started out at the Sundance Film Festival and went to the big screen from there. The stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova wrote and sang all of the music for it and are now on tour. Check out their MySpace for a sample of their work: http://www.myspace.com/theswellseason

Glen definitely has the charisma of a performer. He kept us all laughing with his ramblings about the stories behind their songs and his experiences at Temple Square that afternoon. He clearly enjoys working a crowd and does very well at it.

I found Marketa very unusual in a humble, adorable sort of way. She had a very simple presence about her and seemed uncomfortable being the center of attention, never speaking much to the crowd. When she did introduce a song, she was very concise and vulnerable, sharing the emotions and feelings that inspired it. She was sweet, almost like a little girl, and then she opened her mouth to sing and this beautiful, captivating woman appeared. Her voice is so rich. I love it!

I've been humming their songs all day. It makes me happy....so happy. :)

Daily Documentary

My good friend Dallas does an interview and photo session with some average Joe every day and puts them on his blog. He makes them sound intriguing and interesting and look like supermodels. This is my interview:

http://montage-creative.blogspot.com/2008/04/linda-17-apr-08.html

You can check out the rest of them at www.montage-creative.com He's an amazing photographer and a creative genius. You'll see.....

There's Chocolate Under My Bed

I heard some weird noises coming from under my bed the other day. It sounded like a strange rat eating through my mattress, but no, it was just this rat ripping into a chocolate bar. Would somebody please tell D'Ogee that dogs are not supposed to eat chocolate?

Fortunately, I caught him in the act before he could tear the wrapper to shreds, devour the entire bar of chocolate and have a heart attack from pumping his little heart up with too much caffeine! Whew!

If it's not chocolate, it's the cat's treats. He hasn't quite figured out how to get into a zip locked bag, though.

Must be so frustrating for the poor little guy. He can taste those savoury salmon flavored bits of animal by-products and artificial ingredients through the bag. Yummy! Keep trying, D'Ogee.

Aghhh....Clean your room, D'Ogee! This is why I don't have kids.

New Living Room

I've never thought of myself as a messy person or one with particularly poor decorating skills, but when my friend John walked through my house the other day, he was clearly unimpressed...so much so that he offered his professional decorating skills as a gift to me if I wanted. Of course, I wanted to him to use his magic touch on my home. I just never thought I could afford him. He has, after all, re-decorated the homes of some really big names in Hollywood. So, I gave him a very very small budget and left him alone for the day to do his stuff. He's really quite a fascinating person to watch work. He has no plan; just takes it moment by moment and listens to his intuition, which sweeps him away to a world of creativity that I for one am not allowed to enter! "Your house is telling you all sorts of things, Linda," he says, "you really need to listen to it or it won't be able to tell you any more!" I felt a little sheepish knowing I wasn't listening to my house. I tried to hear what it was saying, but all I got was a blank slate. The man has a gift. What can I say? I just let him converse with my house for the rest of the day, and when I returned at 9:00 that night, I was thrilled to walk into my beautiful new living space. He left me a note that said it needed a good cleaning. Surprisingly, the more I clean, the more I find needs to be done. I think I'm starting to hear what my house has to say, and I'm not sure I like it......"dust behind the furniture, clean the windows, sweep the cobwebs, organize, paint, do SOMETHING with your laundry/storage room you filthy slob! Fix your fence, trim your grass, pull some weeds! HOW CAN YOU LIVE LIKE THIS! YOU'RE A PIG....." AHHHH!!!! Shut up, house!

Conference Sunday

I looooooove having a day every now and then to spend in my pajamas watching conference, eating with friends, and not doing anything else. I had to take D'Ogee for a 2 mile run this morning because he had A.D.D. all night and wouldn't let me sleep, so i made him run until every ounce of energy was squeezed from his little body. I should get a good night's rest tonight!

Other than that, I barely lifted a finger all day. Oh, wait, yes I did...just after 2 teenage boys came to my door offering to buff my hardwood floors for free because it was Sunday, and because they were introducing people to some Kirby product. They promised there was no catch and asked to come back in 15 minutes to get to work. Seemed innocent enough, so I agreed. Keva and I moved as much stuff out of the living room as we could and went back to her room to watch conference. Two hours later, they still hadn't shown! Darn kids. I knew there was something suspicious about them.

So, other than that, I didn't lift a finger all day, just lounged around watching conference and eating. I liked hearing President Monson speak for the first time as our prophet. He definitely seemed different than he was as an apostle. He's a good man. I look forward to hearing more from him.

Well, time to call it a night. My dog is peeved because I'm on the computer instead of devoting ALL of my attention to him. He hates the computer. It's late, and he's pawing on Keva's door. That's his way of threatening me. He's saying if I don't get off that damn computer right now, he's going to go snuggle up to Keva and be her pet. He's just bluffing, but Keva's trying to sleep.

Nite, Nite.

D'Ogee and the Cat Toy

My dog is having an identity crisis. He either learned to do this by watching the cat, or...he thinks he is one! Honestly, have you ever seen a dog play like this?

I've stopped feeding D'Ogee regular dog food. I can't stand the thought of feeding my dog animal by-products, which are the worst of the worst kinds of meat. Call me a freak, but I want my dog to be super healthy, just like me. So, I bought him Newman's Own organic dog food. He hates it. I'm so disappointed. :( I've tried several brands that I approve of, but every morning he runs past his bowl of food and on to the cat's left overs, taking the cans under my bed so he can lick clean every bit of processed, artificial ingredients.

So, the next step was to make my own dog food. I found a great recipe on-line. Apparantly, I'm not the only hyper-sensitive dog freak out there! He loves the dog food, and it's super good for him. Just in case anyone else has had the same dilemma with thier dog, I'm sharing the recipe:

2 lbs of organic meat, cooked.

2 cups cooked oatmeal

4-6 scrambled eggs

1 cup cottage cheese

Blend:

5-6 carrots

2 cups broccoli

2 cups brown rice

Mix all ingredients together. Sleep well at night. :)