Lauren 2.0

I know most of you probably saw this on facebook, but my hair is gone!  I like it a lot, and even Dan said he likes it...he's just worried I'm not going to style it all the time and then it won't be as cute.  I'm not that worried about styling it, cuz basically I just have to blow dry it.  Which is going to be SOOO much easier/quicker than it was when I had long hair.  

Also, I love the guy who cut my hair.  Brighton recommended him to me, and his name is Patrick.  Basically, he's awesome.  And he did an amazing job, no?

 

 Before (in case you forgot what I looked like...)

After.  My eyes look weird in this picture, but oh well. 

I love the internet

Here's why: whilst doing a little background research for my project, I stumbled upon these treasures of joy: How to Be an Indie Rock Elitist and How to Be an Indie Kid Without Knowing Indie Music.

Also, for those of you who want a sneak peek into half of Provo's closets: How to Dress Indie.

I also love irony.

(Because we all know I really do love this.  Just like all of you.)

Reasons this weekend was awesome:

-I had no school on Friday, so my weekend was a whole three days long!

-Friday night, Dan and I went on an awesome double date with my cousin once-removed (...or second cousin?...long story), Autumn, and her boyfriend Devin.  We had a super fun time, even though the Mexican restaurant we were going to go to had closed (we just went to Pizza Pie Cafe instead).  Then, we went to the Nickelcade, and I almost won the jackpot on this speed demon game.  I just wasn't enough of a speed demon.  I did, however, almost hit an innocent couple in the head while playing the basketball game, all thanks to my awesome coordination and some super bouncy basketballs.

-Dan won both his soccer games this weekend!  I only went to one (on Friday--where I had an awesome political discussion with Lyse on immigration and history and other stuff).  It's ok though, cuz for the game I didn't go to, I went and hung out with him and his team at Wingers to watch a soccer game.  I'm so supportive!  (It helped I got to have some sticky fingers.)

-I am officially Queen of the Kitchen.

I made chocolate chip muffins from scratch for breakfast!  I was really worried they wouldn't turn out, cuz when I finished making the batter, I was like, "this looks a lot more like cookie dough than muffin batter..."  Then I realized I'd forgotten to add the milk...which you're supposed to add before you put in all the dry ingredients and the chocolate chips, but I guess it doesn't really  matter if you put it in last, cuz they were still delicious!

Recipe (From Williams-Sonoma)
 

Chocolate Chip Muffins

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 cup milk

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt.  In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter and 1 cup sugar on medium speed until creamy, about 3 minutes. Turn off mixer and scrape down sides of bowl.  Add 1 egg and beat until blended. Add the other egg and the vanilla and beat until well blended. Turn off the mixer and scrape down the bowl.  Add half of the flour mixture and beat on low speed just until blended. Pour in the milk and beat just until blended. Add the rest of the flour and the chocolate chips and beat until blended.  Fill each lined muffin cup with batter. Sprinkle the 1 tablespoon sugar evenly over the tops.  Put the pan in the oven and bake until the muffins are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 21 to 23 minutes.  Remove from oven, set on wire rack to cool for 20 minutes. Tip the muffins out of the pan onto the rack and serve warm or at room temperature.

Then for dinner I made homemade chicken soup and my Aunt Renae's rolls.  The rolls weren't as good as they are when Aunt Renae makes them, but practice makes perfect.  Also, new traditions I am starting:  every weekend I am going to make a breakfast from scratch, and every Sunday dinner we're going to have Aunt Renae's rolls.

Lion House Rolls (Aunt Renae’s Rolls)

2 TBSP yeast

2 cups warm water

Mix yeast and water and let stand for about 5 minutes.

Add:

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup softened butter

2 tsp salt

2/3 cup nonfat dry milk

1 egg

2 cups flour

Beat together until smooth.  This may take a few minutes…

Gradually add up to 4 more cups of flour until a soft dough is formed (I usually do 3 1/2.)  Knead until dough is smooth and elastic.  Place in a greased bowl.  Cover and let rise until double in bulk (about an hour.) Punch down and knead lightly then shape rolls.  Place on greased baking sheet and let rise until double (about 30 minutes.)  Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

A few notes (from Aunt Renae!):

·         For butter I usually just use whatever part of a stick I happen to have in my fridge.  It doesn’t have to be exactly 1/3 cup.  You can even leave it out if you want to…I don’t know why you would want to…trying to be healthy or something???

·         If you don’t want to use dry milk you can use 1 cup water and 1 cup milk in place of the 2 cups of water.  I like to use dry milk because I store it in my food storage and it is a good way to use it up and rotate it.

·         There are lots of ways to shape rolls.  The original recipe calls for dividing the dough into thirds, rolling each third into a circle and then cutting each circle into 12 pie shaped wedges, rolling each wedge crescent style.  I like to divide the dough in half.  Roll each half into a rectangle like you are making cinnamon rolls (about 12x16 inches.) Brush the dough with melted butter, then use a pizza cutter to divide the dough first length wise so you have two rectangles (6x16.) Then cut each into 8 pieces so that you have 16, 2x6 inch strips.  Then holding the strip of dough at one end I flip it so that it winds itself up. So you end up with 32 treasure chest style rolls.  If that doesn’t make sense, let me know…maybe you will have to come over and make them with me sometime J

·         I think they bake up better in glass pans.  I like the bottoms of the rolls to be a little bit crusty, and in a metal pan the bottoms stay soft.

·         I usually cover the rolls loosely with foil for the last few minutes they are in the oven so they don’t get too brown on top. 

 -This is lame, but I wore a new dress to church today, and I looked super cute!

Keepin' it Classy

Here's the deal:
Katherine and I just started a new blog, all about how to be modest without looking like a polygamist.
A few inspirations:
-A girl in my home ward who wore the strangest get-ups, all in the name of being modest.  I think she had a misconstrued definition of the word.
-Some of the outfits the ladies in my ward right now wear.  Matronly.  And not in a good way.  These women haven't hit 30 yet, what is the deal?  And even if they had, that's no excuse.
-Girls I grew up with who didn't think it was possible to be "fashionable" and modest.
-Girls who wear unflattering clothing.
-Girls who are about to fall out of their clothing.
-Those ridiculous square neck/cap sleeve prom and wedding dresses.  Cookie-cutter, mass produced, not cute.  I hate them.  (No offense if you like them.  They're just not my style.)
-Long conversations with Katherine when we were roommates about how so few people have any class.
-My recent transfer to the G's.  It's a rough transition.

We've only got one post right now (Katherine is going to be posting another soon), but we'll hopefully post at least once a week.  Sooo check it out, if you like it, let us know, and more importantly, let your friends know!  And if you have any tips about topics/issues/ideas, then please shoot me or Katho a text/e-mail/facebook message/whatevs!  We'd love to hear them!  Thanks!

http://modestlyclassy.blogspot.com/

Best News Ever!

Ok, so I dunno how many of you know this, but I'm trying REALLY hard to lose some weight.  Mostly because I'm going on my first cruise with Dan's family in about a month, but also because I really should try and be healthier.  So, some habits I've been trying to change include: a) sitting on my duff all day--I've been working out at least four days a week, slowly increasing how long I work out.  I'm up to an hour a day right now, and I think I'm going to keep it around there; b) only eat meat once a day; c) eat healthy snacks--i.e. fruit, veggie, nuts, yogurt; and d) only eat sugar on the weekends.  Now, for those of you that know me, that whole sugar only on the weekends thing is basically impossible.  My love for chocolate could possibly amount to an addiction, not to mention the fact that the "Family Food Project" in my folklore class is sabotaging this effort every Monday and Wednesday.  (That's probably my fault too for having zero self-control).

Anyways, my sugar/chocolate struggle brings me to the point of this post: apparently, drinking chocolate milk three times a day helps you to lose weight!  I read that and I was like, "GET OUT JERRY!"  But it's true.  If you drink a glass when you wake up, another right before you work out, and another right after, it helps you shed the belly fat.  Something to do with calcium and vitamin d intake.  How awesome is that?  So, I can get my chocolate fix AND lose weight.  This may be the best thing to ever happen to me!

Maybe I shouldn't be getting my health tips from Yahoo, but here's the link to the article: http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/54828/the-chocolate-milk-diet/

It's Indie Rock 'n Roll For Me

Hi friends! So, I have this big folklore project coming up, and it's worth a huge percentage of my grade. As nerve-wracking as that is, I chose a fairly fun topic: the Indie subculture in America. Basically, I'm studying group dynamics and the American drive to "be different" through conforming to a group.  A special thanks to the hipsters of Provo for inspiration!

I'm really excited because it's going to be totally awesome, and everyone who I've talked to about this seems to think it's a pretty cool idea. BUT I need your help. Yes, you. I need to have 8-10 interviews collected for my project. And before you start thinking, I'm not "indie" enough to be interviewed, just stop. Because that means you're perfect. As long as you have any opinions, stories, or ideas about indie music/film/clothing/culture, you're just who I'm looking for. And you'll be able to know everything about this project from start to end. I plan to eventually make the interviews into some kind of documentary, because I'm hoping that they'll be fairly telling of society and pop culture in America. In addition, I'm planning on posting a lot of this to my blog, just for kicks and giggles. SO have some fun, make a difference, and let me know if you want to be interviewed! Thank you loyal followers. =]

In the Snow household...

We are dedicated students:

(This is me finishing my folklore project. You can laugh, Dan did too.)


We are champions! Dan's team won their soccer game on Saturday! Woooohoooo!

His team barely won. They tied with the other team in like the last minute of the game, and then it went to a shoot out, which was actually really exciting! (Which is saying something, because we all know I'm not that big of a sports fan!)


We eat a lot.

We went to Red Lobster to celebrate Dan's wonderful win, and Dan tried to convince the waitress that I was pregnant. He's so nice. Also, I tried shrimp for the first time!! It was ok. I wouldn't say it's a new fave.


We went to my aunt and uncle's for Mother's Day and had a delicious feast. She even let us take home some extra pie! (Sorry, no picture, I forgot to take any, I was too busy stuffing my face!)


We love our mothers.

My mom is awesome. She is for real one of my best friends. She listens to all of my problems, and even though we don't always agree, we manage to get over it. She is such an incredible inspiration to me. She really is Mrs. Incredible, and I hope I can be as fantastic of a mommy as she is some day. (Also, I know she looks like my sister and not my mom. Don't worry about it. She was like 21 when she gave birth to me. Calm down.)



Getting married is great, because now I have two awesome mothers. Carrie is probably the coolest MIL a girl could ask for. She always is ready with some cheesy joke, and she can even handle the combined teasing of Dan and Zach. She is just wonderful, and I can't wait to move closer to her in August! Also, she makes the most delicious lasagna you will ever taste in your life.

Hi.

So, here's the 411: Spring Term be out of control. Three classes sounds like a cinch, but I promise it's not; I've had a paper or project do pretty much everyday of class. Plus lots and lots of reading. I am taking American Folklore, Postmodernism, and Critical Theory.

American Folklore is like being in the 5th grade again. Which is totally chill. Plus my favorite fellow English major, Brighton, is in there with me. And our textbook is a children's book of tall tales. Can you say awesome?

Postmodernism is that perfect mix of challenging and interesting. It may be my new fave time period/movement to study. Plus, I've gotten good grades/feedback on all assignments, and I'm pretty sure my teacher likes me. She always loves my comments and she wrote that she "thoroughly enjoyed reading this" on one of my papers. End of story: I'm the greatest. (Joke. Duh.)

Also, connection! The last book we read for PoMo was The English Patient, which was made into a movie a few years ago. Anyways, my mommy told me about this Seinfeld episode all about the movie version, so Dan and I watched it, and it's HYSTERICAL. Here's a lovely clip of Elaine with her boss at the movies.



Critical Theory makes me want to kill myself. Seriously. The other day in that class I wrote in my notes "Kill me now!" Then I scribbled it out because it sounded like a hex or something, and I don't really want to die. I just hate that class. It's TWO AND A HALF HOURS LONG. My teacher for that class has a hook hand, so you'd think he'd be more interesting. Nope. Like Professor Binns in Harry Potter. Essentially it's a philosophy class, and so far we've covered Plato and Aristotle. It's going to be a long seven weeks.

Now I have to go bury myself in my Folklore project. Kbye.