waffles and peanut butter.

Don't you all put peanut butter on your waffles? In my family we grew up putting peanut butter and syrup all over our waffles and pancakes. I remember going on sleepovers and having pancakes or waffles and asking if they had some peanut butter. I have received some very strange looks when I ask for the peanut butter, but a pancake or waffle just isn't the same without it for me now. My family also has always made homemade syrup, so it was always hard for me to have "cold" syrup straight from the bottle when I would eat breakfast at other people's houses. I mean after I asked for the accommodation of the peanut butter I always felt awkward asking if I could heat up the syrup first too haha. Since I had a hard week I decided Saturday morning to treat myself to some waffles :) My parents gave us a really cool waffle maker for Christmas, like the kind you would use at a hotel, and it made the best waffles! So I thought I would share the family recipe here for you all. Enjoy :)

Leavitt's Waffles
3 cups flour
5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 TBSP sugar
4 large eggs
2 1/4 cups milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup oil

Don't beat the mixture too much. It will be thick. Pour 1 cup batter per batch. This recipe is easily doubled, tripled etc. My family usually makes tons of this and we have ourselves a waffle feast!

smoke alarm.

 Top: BP Blazer: JCrew Jeans: Silver Boots: Steve Madden

So we live in an incredibly small apartment. It also happens to be in the basement of a house, so we don't have a lot of windows. Our oven also sucks.... but what doesn't suck is our smoke detectors. They are very very sensitive to say the least. Whenever we decide to broil something, the oven creates an abnormal amount of smoke. The thing is, nothing seems to really even be burning! Yet there is enough smoke that could make people think our place is being engulfed in flames. Well the other day Trevor was making steaks, and he broiled them. Lo and behold our apart was full of smoke with in minutes of him opening the oven. Not just one but all three of our smoke alarms went off. These suckers are LOUD, and they do not turn off easily. You have to fan like a crazy person! Because we don't have a lot of windows opening them didn't help much. We had the door open but it was freezing cold outside. So the image here is... me and Trevor frantically destroying magazines as we ferociously wave them back and forth in front of the smoke alarm. By now we are cold, our arms are tired,  our ears hurt, and it seems like there is more and more smoke because I can't breath. This lasted for about 10 minutes and I am pretty sure we freaked the neighbors out...haha. So lesson is? Why do we ever need to go to the gym? We can just get a great work out right before we eat our streak :)

P.S. So I am wishing I lived Malibu. My brother lives there and runs into celebrities all the time. It isn't that I love celebrities or anything, but it would be cool to run into someone I truly am a fan of their work. For example today my brother ran into Katy Perry at the bank! Just a typical day for him... haha.

2011 & a great salad.

Just like my Christmas update my New Years update is behind as well. Jamie my bestie from back home happened to be in St. George as well this Christmas break. Her parents decided to move to St. George, and their timing couldn't be any more perfect. My first Christmas away from home and I got to have a piece of it with me still. We spent an afternoon on her boyfriend's motor bikes, and soaking up the hot tub. Since we were both there, we decided the 5-6 hour drive to San Diego to see a friend from church get married was well worth the trip! It would also mean we could see other family and friends in San Diego :) So we went, and it was a blast. We danced the night away at the wedding, Courtnie (our friend that got married looked beautiful). Since we left our boys in Utah we went to a small dinner with friends for New Years. I have never felt more like an adult then I did that night, haha. I mean I have never had a quite New Years Eve before.... ever! It was also my first New Years Eve where I didn't have a New Years kiss since I was 15 years old... haha. Oh how I missed my Trevor. But it was still a great low key night, with yummy food and friends.

My mom shared this wonderful salad with me to bring to the New Years Eve dinner. Now let me tell you, I am normally not a fan of salads that have a bunch of different things in them, but this salad really blew me away! It is a must try.

Pasadena Salad (serves 4-6)

What you need:
1 head romaine
3 chicken breasts shredded
1 cup chopped celery
4 stems of green onion, slice
1 avocado, cut up
1 granny smith apple, cut up (cubed) skin on
1 10 oz. can of mandarin oranges, drained
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup blue cheese

Add all into large bowl.

Caramelized Almonds:
1/2 cup sliced almonds
3 TBSP sugar
Melt over medium heat (preferably non-stick skillet) and stir until
sugar melts and caramelizes almonds.  Cool and add to above.

Dressing:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 TBSP fresh chopped parsley
2 TBSP sugar
2 TBSP white wine vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

beauty.

I was hesitant about posting this, but after reading an article that was published on the same topic last week, I decided to share it. For my Senior Seminar we were allowed to pick any topic we wanted to to for our research paper. For awhile I was stumped, but my professor told me to find something that I was really interested in so I wouldn't get bored of looking up more information and writing over 15 pages. At first I was not sure why I was drawn to this topic. I reflected on why this topic fascinates me so much and think I have come up with some form of an answer.

Because it also affects me.

I am by no stretch of the imagination considered over weight. Yet I still focus on how much "better" my body could be. Does this make me vain? Or am I simply just a product of my environment?

If this does mean I am vain...I think most women out there are in the same boat as me. I do not obsess over my body, but it is something that is constantly in the back of my mind. I will find myself critiquing my body, and then seconds later tell myself how ridiculous I sound. Why do I play this battle in my mind where I have to convince myself I look fine, and that I know am pretty dang healthy? And what does this battle mean for other women? Some result in eating disorders, BDD, obesity, and others simply fix the "problem" by going under the knife. Since we had to narrow our topic down to be very specific, I decided to focus on plastic surgery, more specifically cosmetic surgery.

Why do so many women have body image issues?

I would just like to preface this paper by saying that I am not necessarily against cosmetic surgery. I do however think that women have taken it to a new level, and our society is starting to accept it. 

The feelings women have about their bodies is what most concerns me.

So if you have the time, please read and tell me your thoughts on this topic.

I would really love to hear some women's perspective on this.

Now please don't mind any spelling errors etc. that you might find in this paper, my parents already pointed out several to me! I turned it in a couple days after Christmas so I wasn't reading with the best of academic eyes at that point, haha.

 

P.S. Just a couple days ago my mother emailed me this link. This article made me decide to post my research paper. I know not everyone reading this is LDS but for those that are I thought you might find it interesting, especially if you live in Utah. Just some surprising statistics and more thoughts about exactly what I discuss in my paper.

An old friend and her sister have made this topic their mission in life :) check our their blog!