let's talk about life + three months!

Hello from the mountain land. Utah has decided to get very cold, quite rapidly, and i am starting to realize just how much the risk of contacting frostbite has increased since moving to a cold place without a car. Minnesota was quite the frozen tundra, but you drove around in that frozen tundra in a car that had a heater. Here it's just you, your two feet, and 1.6 miles to central campus. At least I have great parents who kindly sent me a coat in the mail last week. What would one do without them? die...literally. Life here is absolutely wonderful, i'm so close to starting my major, and loving my classes. College is harder and more stressful than I ever imagined it could be, but it is also more rewarding and exciting than I thought possible. We're a family here, and  I love that I can walk around our building with no makeup on, or have a good cry and not be judged. I was talking with my friend Brandon earlier today about the topics we had all chosen to write our research papers on for a general english class that pretty much the entire building is in, and he pointed out that if you listed every topic, we would be able to point out who each one belonged to without hesitating. We are all getting to know each other so well now, all the important details and everything, and there is nothing more wonderful. One of the most amazing things about college, is that we can all have different likes and interests and come from a plethora of different lifestyles, and still be best friends. I already know that the people I'm becoming friends with now will be in my life for a very long time.
The dating scene is quite different than I expected it to be, since the LDS mission age change has caused a slight shortage in the male population for the time being. The ten boys in my ward have big shoes to fill considering there are 114 girls. But i've dated a few people and kissed a few more and the husband hunt continues. It's funny because as much as I joke about wanting to get married, I am so content being single and independent and selfish, it would have to be absolutely the right person for me to give up the life i am living now. Sacrifice the good for something better is how the saying goes, right?
Work is good, my only complaint is that since I make coffee, I only get hit on by people who drink coffee, which is fine and dandy but really, I'm just surrounded by a bubble of mormon problems.
I don't have a lot of exciting stories to share today, but my november goal is to blog more, life is too short to not keep track of things on the internet.
Mostly I wanted to talk about how three months ago today at a very early hour, i boarded a plane in minnesota with no expectations and a pocketful of worries, all alone about to being a new life filled with unknowns. I have learned so many things and truly am growing into the person I have always dreamed I would become. I can not believe that the semester is over halfway through, what a crazy adventure it has been!
Happy monday, kids! and happy 3 months to me!
xoxo.
Sarah

College Month Two!

So November first is this Friday and I seriously can not believe it. Time up here goes by so fast, there is never enough time in the day/week/weekend and everything is such a blur. That's obviously why I haven't blogged in a month. Has it really been a whole nother month? Shoot. Well, here is college summed up in a few sentences.
It's always a party here, we pretend that something is always going on, but for the most part we all just like to sit together. Oreos and peanut butter is the snack food of choice, and we have discovered that not only is it completely acceptable to buy the walmart brand oreos, but they actually taste better if thats even possible. Staying up until five thirty in the morning always seems like a good idea at four thirty in the morning, but when your alarm goes off at six thirty for class, you always regret it. And sometimes skip class.
I don't really know what to blog about, life is so wonderful and there are not a lot of ways to put it into words. I finally feel like i'm becoming the person that I have wanted to be my whole entire life and there is something so wonderful about that. My friends are the greatest ever, and have become my family so quickly. The adventures we have, holy cow!
The husband hunt has officially come to an end, I have no idea why i thought it would be such a grand idea to get married freshman year, because honestly there is nothing more fun than just dating a ton of people and meeting a ton of people and kissing and yeah. I just came to the realization that there is not going to be another time like this in my life where everything is fun and you work hard during the week and party hard on weekends.
There is something so wonderful about being surrounded by people that all have the same beliefs as you do, but who have all grown up in different places with different experiences. we make each other better people around here, and i feel so blessed to get to be a part of this wonderful group of people.
That is all.

Cooking in College: Brown Butter Salted Chocolate Rice Krispie Treats + Sprinkles!

Hello! It has been way too long, I know! The good news is I have been having so much fun and have met so many wonderful people and it just so happens that sometimes I forget to do things like laundry or blogging. Don't worry, I finally did my laundry last week. It's a real big issue though, becoming motivated to do laundry. I actually just ended up buying more underwear because that's always a good solution to life's problems.
In the five weeks that college has been in session, I have already become notorious for my baked goods. There is nothing more wonderful than posting a picture of food on instagram and having five boys show up to your apartment a few minutes later. I have never been the best at a lot of things, but I can cook, and let me tell you, it is how I plan on finding a husband someday. I'll offer to cook for him every day for the rest of our lives and all eternity and then we will get married. It's a great life plan, I know. Anyway, on to the food.
Every Sunday I host Sunday dinner at my apartment and usually end up serving things like spaghetti or enchiladas or some other sort of food that is not ramen noodles or grilled cheese. It is one of my favorite parts of the week. This past Sunday, however, I did not purchase groceries and thus the forever long name Rice Krispie Treats were born. The recipe is from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, one of the few cookbooks I actually cook out of, and it is wonderful. Then, to make things a little more exciting, I added dark chocolate and sprinkles because who doesn't love dark chocolate and sprinkles?
The boys love them, i'll tell you that much.
Brandon suggested that I start taking pictures and blogging about all the things I make in college, and since I already had a blog I was like okay.

It started out seductively posing with my masterpiece.

"Don't you dare drop those, Sarah!"

Brown Butter Salted Chocolate Rice Krispie Treats with sprinkles
1 stick butter
3/4 box rice krispie cereal
1/4 tsp salt
1 bag marshmallows
1/4 c. dark chocolate
sprinkles

melt butter in pan on medium heat, once it is melted, it will foam, then it will turn light brown and start to turn nutty. This is how you get the brown butter aspect of these lovelies. Scrape the bottom of the pan while the butter is melting and make sure to watch it, the time between when you have brown butter and when you have burnt butter is about  a thirty second difference.
Once you have brown butter, remove from the heat and add the marshmallows and salt. the heat of the butter should be enough to completely melt the marshmallows but if it is not, put the pot back on the stove and stir only until melted.
add the rice krispies to the melted marshmallow and butter mixture, stir until well combined.
pour into a buttered 8x10 pan and press down.
melt chocolate and put in a plastic bag, drizzle over rice krispies.
add sprinkles if desired.
allow about half an hour for it to set up or put in the freezer for five minutes.
feed to college boys (not required, but absolutely recommended).

College is so wonderful and let me tell you, I never sleep anymore.
happy monday!!
xoxo.
Sarah

For My Mother.

 When l was applying to colleges, I couldn't wait to get out of the house, grow up, and make something of myself. But if someone would have told me that becoming your own person and growing up means you don't get to see your family for four and a half months when the long summer days have been replaced with cold winter nights, I probably wouldn't have been so quick to sign up. I owe everything I have, am, and will become to my wonderful parents. I'm the luckiest girl alive because I have had the privilege to be raised by them. Parents who love my siblings, me, and most importantly, each other. They have taught me what to strive for in a marriage, and guided me to become the type of person that's deserving of a man who loves The Lord, loves his family, and will take care of me.

Mom,
Thank you for everything. You're the most selfless, kind, funny, spontaneous, beautiful, loving woman I know. You have taught me so many important things already, and life is really only just beginning. Thank you for taking me bra shopping even when I didn't need a bra yet, for forgiving me after I threw a phone at your head in fifth grade, for buying me name brand tampons when I was thirteen and the generic kind were not good enough, thank you for French braiding my hair every night before bed sophomore year, and for letting me come home from school when I had a bad day. Thank you for taking the family to New York City for spring break two years ago so that I could tour the French Culinary Institute and figure out my future. Thank you for sitting through countless nights of meltdowns as I cried over where I should go to college. Thank you for encouraging me to get a job, to work hard  & save. Thank you for teaching me how to cook, and for encouraging me to follow  my dreams. Thank you for taking me out for dinner when I came home from work starving, and for offering to rub my feet after I had worked an eight hour day, even though you had so many other things to do. Thank you for moving twice in ten months, just to get our family into a good school district. Thank you for driving us twenty miles to school, so I didn't have to sit alone at the lunch table. Thank you for letting me have my own bedroom, even though I didn't keep it clean like I promised. Thank you for washing my work clothes at a moments notice, and for driving to school and putting them in my car when I forgot. Thank you for waking up at five in the morning to make green smoothies, scrape ice off my car windshield, and send us off to early morning seminary. Thank you for coming shopping with me, for always being a good listener, for staying young and fun. Thank you for letting me cook dinner and feed the family food with strange ingredients, for letting me come to the decision that New York isn't right for me right now on my own. Thank you for doing my hair for me every morning for six weeks senior year when I broke my wrist and couldn't do it myself. Thank you for eating pints of chunky monkey with me, just because. Thank you for listening to my complain about school, about my problems, about everything at one point. Thank you for doing my dishes after I made dinner or cupcakes, even though I said I would. Thank you for letting me take over an entire cabinet in our tiny kitchen so I had a place to keep my baking supplies. Thank you for calling the nurse and telling her I had a doctors appointment when I forgot to get a note for the pep rallies. Thank you for letting me borrow and most of the time not return all your super cute clothes. Thank you for driving me to work on days I did not feel like driving myself. Thank you for letting me  cry after a bad day, and for letting me come home from school when I would get bad cramps. Thank you for helping me put ombré in my hair even though I'm already blonde  and you knew it wouldn't work. Thank you for taking me to New York City just hours after graduation to avoid my senior party, thank you for letting me pretend we were locals, and for coming with me to all the strange places the locals loved. Thank you for getting a hotel by JFK on our last night instead of waiting at the airport, thank you for letting me work through my emotions of not being able to live in the city right now, for being loving and supporting and so much fun. Thank you for buying my college stuff, and for paying for my housing. Thank you for encouraging me to fly down here early for a job interview, thank you for driving my stuff down here, and for always being a good listener. Thank you for helping me carry my stuff up four flights of stairs to my apartment. Thank you for helping me down those same four flights of stairs when I stabbed myself in the leg while unpacking my kitchen knives. Thank you for taking me to the emergency room. I know that I can take care of myself, that i can cook and clean and do my homework, but i'm going to miss seeing you everyday, i'll miss our late night ice cream runs, always having someone to talk to, i'll miss all of it. This list doesn't even begin to cover everything you have done for me, and I promise I'll let you and dad live with me when you're old and have grey hair and can't go to the bathroom by yourselves. Lastly, I wanted to thank you for being my best friend, it's the most wonderful thing in the world, and I'm going to miss you so much while I'm at school. I love you so much, mom.

 

 

 
 

xoxo.
Sarah

Cupcake Snob.

I didn't have to work today. I also do not have a car. About a mile away from where I am staying is a cupcakery that I have been dying to try ever since I first laid eyes on it...two days ago. While in  Highland last week I went to two cupcakeries, and was disappointed by both of them. One was too sweet, another was too dry. There are a few factors that determine a good cupcake in my books:

1. The cupcake can not be dry. 
2. If the cake is super sweet the frosting can not be sweet. If the frosting is sweet, the cake can not be too sweet. It's all about the basic frosting to cake sweetness ratio.
3. NO CRISCO
4. NO ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS
5. NO REFRIGERATING THE CUPCAKES.

Now onto the cupcake review, people.

I tried four different flavors. Peach, Chocolate peanut butter, chocolate vanilla, and red velvet.

All of the frostings were wonderful. Not too sweet, not grainy, not too buttery. perfectly light and airy, with no artificial flavorings. 

The actual cake on three of them was exactly the same. They called it a cheesecake cake, but it didn't taste at all like cheesecake. More like a poorly flavored vanilla. This being said, it had a good crumb and was perfectly moist. Although i can see why they used the cake, since it paired well with each of the frostings, I was slightly unimpressed with the fact that so many of the selections that they offered were paired with the same cake. 

The cake itself for the red velvet was too moist to the point that it was almost spongey. This results when too many eggs are used. The flavor was okay. The frosting was this cupcakes saving grace. Red velvet gets a 2 out of 5.

Now for Pictures!!

On a positive note, This is the closest I have ever come to fully enjoying a cupcake besides my own and of course Georgetown Cupcake aka cupcake royalty, the gold standard, the best of the best, etc.
I'll probably come back to this place, they have a vanilla cinnamon sugar cupcake that I would like to try.
Happy cupcaking, with a promise that i'll post Sarah approved cupcake recipes in the (hopefully) not too distant future.
xoxo.
Sarah

The Past Two Weeks.

Well, i'm here in Utah, and although I have been homeless for the past week and a half, I get to move into my apartment this Saturday so we're celebrating. When I decided to fly out early for a job interview a few weeks ago, I was beyond nervous. Here I was giving up two extra weeks at home with my family to fly out last minute for a job interview. I'm so very grateful that I did. I got the job! Since I didn't have to start work until the following week, I went down to Highland to spend time with family and sleep in a real bed. Yesterday I went into work and filled out the usual paperwork, and today I start my on the job training. Utah has a terrible way of encouraging me to eat endless amounts of delicious food. Cafe Rio! Zupas! In-N-Out! Waffle Truck! Orange Leaf! My new favorite, however, is shaved ice. Holy hannah that stuff is wonderful, and something that Minnesota has yet to discover. It's probably a good thing there are not too many of them in Logan, because no matter how much you've eaten during the day, you can always make room for shaved  ice. I'm so excited, though. Most of the nerves are gone and I'm ready to start this new adventure.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm official!

happy tuesday.

xoxo.

Sarah

Three days.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
Then i'm flying out Sunday morning before the sun pops out. It's funny, in school they teach us the basic skills so that we can survive on our own when we graduate. We learn math, english, history, painting, even interior design. But not once during my entire high school career did anyone tell me just how much stuff you need for college. Never in my life have i had to think about laundry detergent or stain remover past the point of taking it from the cabinet and putting it in the washer. Doing laundry is fine and dandy but dang have you ever looked at the price of laundry detergent? You have to work for two hours at a minimum wage job to pay for the stuff. Anyway, we spent all day driving around Minnesota picking up last minute everything. Ikea, Mall of America, Target, Costco, Trader Joe's, and an ice cream cone for good measure. The worst part is even though my living room is filled to the brim with boxes i still feel like i do not have everything. we'll call it college freshman anxiety. Another thing worth noting is that today is the last day of July which hardly seems possible. It is crazy how fast time passes when you're working full time. For once though, i'm not dreading the start of school and it feels very grown up to be saying that. Gone are the days of first day of school outfits and new lunch boxes. They've made room for never ending student fees, textbooks, and tuition costs. Truthfully though, I am so very excited.

Happy Wednesday!
xoxo.
Sarah

In which we pose.

      Today was absolutely wonderful. I met up with & said goodbye to a few good friends then spent the rest of the day with my family. One thing that was not written in the "things that happen the week before you go to college" handbook is how many breakfast/brunch/lunch/dinner/midday snack dates you should expect to go on prior to departing. This is where I should say something about how grateful I am to be able to see everyone I love before I leave, but, that sounds mushy and last night's target post was enough mush for at least three days.
      At lunch, Grant asked my mom to take a picture of the two of us but why take just one picture when you can take six from every angle out there?
      I've said it before and I will keep saying it for a very long time, but, I really wish it didn't take me going to college to realize just how much fun my siblings are. I mean, I knew they were cool, I just didn't appreciate it as much as I should have.
     Also, to all the single fifteen year old ladies about to look at these pictures; yes, Grant is single. But if you think for one minute that you can get to him without coming to me first...i'll be living in Utah so you can probably get away with it.
                                                                                                                                           

Grant + Sarah + Ethan for life

Happy Saturday, everyone.
xoxo.
Sarah