pride.

my bff, ryan allen penning, hailing from algona, ia, has just won the banner for having the best musical theatre in the entire state of iowa. congrats to you, dear friend, and your students at waterloo west high school. 

happy v-day!

 i made these lovely cookies... and then failed to mail any of them on time.

whoops.

devotchka!

(yes, that is a light up tuba on the right. and an accordion on the left.) 

these scantily clad ladies did super crazy dancing on that fabric hanging from the ceiling. 

we made this olive-artichoke-red pepper-feta-spinach pizza.

it was the BESSSSSST! 

and we made this art.

nate did the background and i did the doodles.

sparkle party!

rebecca's birthday theme this year was sparkle (you may remember her pirate party last year). aunt susan was kind enough to let us host a pre-party party at her home and then we went out on the town in all of our sparkly glory.

so many sparkles. 

close-up of the cake i made. 

matt, claire, and josh. 

(matt's skin is naturally glittery... he's so lucky.) 

birthday high-fives. 

susan and the boyfriends.

the rest of the night involved lots more glitter... as has my life since this night.

(glitter: the herpes of crafts.)

botanic gardens.

nathan and i hit up free day at denver's botanic gardens last month. here's a smattering of the nature we saw:

 (henry moore sculptures) 

(tasty soup and goat cheese biscuits we made post-adventure)

sweet jubilation!

 our first non-raw food in over a week.

aka best bagel of my life.

(we also scarfed down your ginger snaps, mom,
but they were gone before photos could be taken.)

hot tea! yessssss. 

breakfast burritos at tom's diner.  

so good! 

on january 8, 2010, after consuming 2 48-oz big gulps, i decided to
give up coca-cola (and all soda) for a whole year. and i made it!

what is pictured here is my first taste of coke after this hiatus. 

it was magical. 

going raw.

after our terrible, life-ruining experience at casa bonita, nate and i decided we needed to recover with an all raw diet. raw means the food has never been above 115 degrees. here's a preview of the delectable (?) cuisine we sampled over our one week stint. 

rawsage. 

get it? like sausage. 

(this had approximately zero things in common with sausage.)

after pulsing all of the raw ingredients in the food processor, we formed these green little patties.

mmmmmm.

guac rolled up in a lettuce leaf.

these "burritos" were offensive to the good burrito name. 

nate got pretty into "sprouting" which is soaking and rinsing beans over a 

period of days so that they sprout and have extra super enzymes. 

unfortunately, they tasted terrible.

more sprouting action.

success: sprouted garbanzo beans!

parsley-ginger-blueberry smoothies. 

i added agave nectar to mine to make it a little easier to palate. 

tasty salads.

grated zucchini, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms, and pesto.

this one was actually pretty good.

apple cinnamon "oatmeal."

aka oats that were soaked overnight.

not good.

chinese wild rice salad.

this one was ok, but i couldn't eat it more than once.

grapefruit-asparagus-jicama-lime salad.

"falafel."