princess time.

(click to enlarge)

ruth said i should post this. and since i'm a good sister, i did.

but guess what? i'm taking this one step further.

how can you BECOME a princess??

well. let me tell you.

(according to ehow.com)

1. scout out the inheritance laws of various localities. in some countries, you can become a princess by an act of a country's legislature, which can vote to grant you the title.

2. marry a prince (duh).

3. encourage your parents to buy a country and hope they decide to designate you princess for suggesting the idea.

4. start your own country. even though it's traditional to give yourself the title of queen or empress, there's no reason you can't become a princess instead.

5. win a competition. the winner of the minnesota dairy princess program is awarded the title "princess kay of the milky way," and gets her statue carved out of butter.

and for a few more lingering thoughts, let me add these.

* i always thought it was called "walt disnep pictures"

because of the VERY MISLEADING logo:

* does belle really count as a princess? she's more like, in charge of a mansion. i don't know if that qualifies in my book.

* disney plans to add rapunzel as a princess. they're set to release the animated movie, "tangled," later this year and she is the star. oh..and ewan mcgregor does one of the voices.

about a decade's worth.

that's about how much sleep i feel like i've been making up for lately. that covers my over-achieving 8th grade year, my high school years, where i pulled more all-nighters than anyone should legally be allowed to (plus seminary) + my crazy college years, which (in all honesty) were mostly sleep-deprived because i was having too much fun.

anyways. i've been sleeping a lot lately. that's what i'm trying to say. and it's usually pretty great. it is something to do when i don't feel like moving around a lot (which is fairly often, what with my left leg still hurting a lot), except for how usually i'll wake up and be in a lot of pain. apparently i'm a contortionist in my dreams and i always wake up with all sorts of hurting. but what can you do?

^ if you said, "bake more stuff," then you are right. this week, i made some old-fashioned oatmeal raisin cookies and succeeded in finding the ONE THING that my brother-on-law refuses to eat.

which means, more for me + ruth. yeahhh.

^ since my week has been pretty uninteresting (just working on my documentary and doing physical therapy all the time), let's look at more fun things. here's a picture from when me + mikey went to a byu baseball game 2 weeks ago. cougars won, mostly because we're good luck. also, if you didn't know, mikey is FAMOUS. yes, he now gets recognized in grocery stores and baseball games for being on tv.

^ it was my friend jordan's birthday two weeks ago and he always takes cool pictures of ordinary things to make them look fabulous. so to celebrate his big day, i took this picture.

^ i took this picture this past week. one day, i just needed to get out and take a break, so i just started driving around until i found this park and the park had a trail and i wandered around for a while until i got here and then i sat down and just relaxed and enjoyed the view, far from all the crazy things in my silly life. the end.

now, it's off to make some cookies with peanut butter in them so drew will have something yummy to eat ( :

**too lazy to make another post**

**cookie blog: part 2**

here are the monster cookies i decided to make today.

^ no joke. they are huge.

^ anatomy of a cookie that drew will eat:

mini chocolate chips. regular-sized peanut butter chips.

giant chocolate chips. cookie dough. square shaped.

my life is exciting.

...i mean not really. but things have definitely been interesting lately.

^ this past weekend's cooking project was another venture into the world of european delicacies: chocolate-filled creme puffs.

^ and today my new shoes got here!

old ozweegos...meet new ozweegos.

can't wait to break them in!!

(thanks mom + dad!)

so, what is keeping me from trying out my new shoes?

oh...something about twisting / pulling / destroying

my knee / hip / quad muscle / hamstrings / pelvis / ?!?

i didn't know that was even possible, but apparently:

something is wrong.

and that something is connected to

all of the other somethings on the left side of my body.

which makes for a very painful...something?

i don't even know.

oh. and my right knee...still as misaligned as always.

and yet...somehow it's not hurting nearly as much as my, well, whatever it is on my left side that isn't working.

frustrating? yes.

more frustrating because i don't understand it? yes.

^ so now i am left with two unusual things.

a nearly-empty bottle of ibuprofen

and a bottle of PRESCRIPTION DRUGS.

i know...right? just figures.

i'll chalk this one up to some sort of

subconscious prescription-drug-envy

that my body has been harboring

ever since i started working on my documentary.

...which i am still working on.

...with my legs that don't want to work.

what a stellar past few days it's been.

even if that's not how it was.

for being a semi-young person, it seems like i've lived through a lot. from my suburban-ish upbringing to my (private school) college years to my cross-country adventures to my news life / theatre world / waitressing craziness / working busy-ness / random endeavors...i just feel like a lot has happened. when i look back now...it's interesting to think about the things i remember.

because, it's never the endless nights i stayed awake studying. or the "guest" who was a bottomless pit and needed a zillion refills on their diet coke. or the super-long classes that bored me to death. or the mornings i woke up before the crack of dawn to tackle the news. or the late nights striking shows...long after the actors left.

it's the nights i ditched my homework and went out with friends. and the nights we threw our tips into the fountain and made wishes. and the classmates i passed notes to during super-long lectures. and the compelling stories we told on our newscast. and the yummy dinners we ate after strike even though we were too tired to see straight.

sometimes i wonder if that's somehow not quite right. shouldn't i remember the bad with the good? isn't life the balance of two opposite sides of a spectrum? can i truly enjoy the wonderful things in my life without remembering the awful things that were sprinkled in between?

maybe that's just how humans are built. kind of a self-preservation thing...you remember the things the way you want them to be...even if that's not how it it was.

stuff for my mom.

mom!

here are some pictures and things i've been meaning to show you!

^ these are the cookies i made over the weekend. they have some big chocolate chunks and some baby chocolate chips ( :

^ here's a picture of your friend charfy playing with my osu lanyard.

^ this is from when we went to visit lorilee on saturday and gave her the apron. she just loved it sometimes.

^ another awesome picture of charfield!!

^ and here's a music video i found.

hopefully you can watch it and show it to daniel!

maybe if he sees the blue-haired girl who loves vegetables,

he can learn to love them too...

tried to make me go to rehab...i said, "no, no, no."

i've been running since forever. when me and my gal pals realized that by joining the cross county and track + field teams, we'd be able to work out with the boys, we signed up faster than you would believe. i made some awesome (boy) friends who ran very fast, which pushed me to run faster since we all ran together. my relay team broke a record at our middle school (!!!) and i went on to run in high school too. through college, i just ran for fun.

my sophomore year of college, i went to the doctor with excruciating pain in my right knee. diagnosis? "runner's knee." when this happens, your kneecap gets misaligned and starts pulling to one side or the other of where it's supposed to go and it scrapes against your bones and cartilage (that's why it hurts). so you go to physical therapy and do all these crazy rehab exercises and eventually, your muscles are able to pull your kneecap back to where it ought to be.

it's been years since then, and even though i have to wear a knee brace sometimes, it's been pretty good for a while. but it's started bothering me a lot lately. and it's frustrating, because i want to run but my body is like, "nooo. do lame rehab strengthening exercises instead." and those aren't fun.

maybe it's because i started going to a new gym / running outside sometimes. maybe it's because i've started running longer than i was doing during the school year. maybe it's because my running shoes are a million years old and don't cushion my knees like they're supposed to. for whatever reason...it's back to rehab for me. boo.

"just so dun."

it's the question that's on everyone's minds lately and i know it...mostly because i field it about a zillion times a day, but also because it's kind of an obvious thing: "anna...what have you been doing since you graduated??"

and let me tell you...IT'S A SECRET AND I'M NOT TELLING YOU.

instead, i'm going to make a list of everything i'm not doing.

-raking in the big bucks as a college grad.

-applying to grad school.

-pulling all-nighters / studying.

-finding a nice dentist to settle down with.

-lying out by the pool and painting my nails every day.

-starting my semi-professional biking career.

-watching my team work their way towards the nba finals.

-writing the screenplay for my full-length feature film.

-moving back to provo (with my adorable live-in boy toy).

and now you know. the end.

macarons vs. macaroons

i'm learning a lot about cooking lately...mostly that i never seem to like the recipe as it is written and always find myself changing it. also that nothing cooks quite right at this ridiculous utah altitude. but just for the record (mostly for natalie), let's get one thing straight.

these are macaROONs.

they usually have some coconut and condensed milk in them and are flaky and easy to make. they only take about ten minutes and come out looking pretty sweet.

these are macaRONs.

you usually put two of these together to make a yummy cookie sandwich with creme in the middle. they have egg whites in them and are super-hard to make (trust me -- mine obviously didn't turn out quite like the ones in the picture). also you can make them different colors.

i guess technically you could make the macaroons different colors too, but they are not traditionally colored. both of the recipes are gluten-free, so they don't have flour in them, but that is basically where their similarities end.

...besides the fact that their names look very much alike as well.

and now you know. macarons and macaroons are two different things.

never have i ever.

if you know me at all, you know that i love to cook. which is why this weekend's culinary escapades were horrifying, to say the least.

never in my life have i ever made anything that turned out so awful that it was beyond salvaging. it was my first foray into french pastries (which, as i learned, are VERY delicate) and it was not a pretty sight. not only did i burn the dough, i also ruined the vanilla pastry creme (it didn't taste too bad...just had some "vanilla chunks" in it...).

but have no fear...i didn't quit.

no.

instead, i salvaged the egg whites from the vanilla pastry creme (since i had only used the yolks for the recipe) and made something brand new: chocolate macarons.

i've never made them before, but i guess they are a mix between cookies and brownies. also they are yummy. ask my brothers-in-law

( : they ate almost the entire batch at dinner yesterday.

so between yesterday and today, i remade my raspberry napoleons. here are the layers before i stacked them on top of each other.

napoleons were originally my mom's idea. i told her i wanted to make something french and she said something about them. so i found a video on youtube of a guy making them and made up my own recipe (since he didn't include any measurements...) and *voila.*

i didn't burn them this time ( :

^ one more treat to put on the menu at my bakery someday.

ozweegos.

there are very few things in life that i allow myself to become seriously attached to. especially when it comes to material things that come and go like the rising tide. but i still can't get over my ozweegos. here is what they look like when they are new:

and here is what they look like when they are mine:

i've had these shoes for WAY too many years. they have helped me break records on my middle school track team, run distance medleys in high school and hit the pavement for billions of miles in my college years. they have high jumped, long jumped and hurdled with me and despite probably being too old to be safe to continue to run in...they are my favorite shoes to wear when i run. they fit my feet perfectly and are somehow still incredibly comfortable. i love love love them. i'm sure they don't make them anymore, but if i ever find another one of these, you can be they'll be on my feet in a hot second. love you ozweegos. thanks for the awesome run today.

the little things.

my project for april: instead of focusing on things that are stressing me out, think about the little things. find the tender mercies in life and be grateful for what i have instead of being concerned about things i can't control. and everyday, write down something or a few things. here they are...no particular order.

laughter. quiet. love. sound of snow falling. buckeyes. hugs. my favorite song played on the radio (twice). feelings. it all worked out. daniel. remember. walked with me. knowing. the light turned green. breakfast. seeing someone in a different light. visit. staying up late just talking. balance. wearing the wrong shoes. shout out. "hi, anna." didn't get a ticket. family. good intentions. it doesn't matter. sunshine. brothers. sisters. rain falling all around. being found. prayer. rest from pain. foundation. enjoy each other's company. boys who are actually just friends. really good. wind in my hair. realize.

so...what's good in your life today?