Casseroles, pictures, and Pappy

Today, I made the first real, more-than-three-ingredients, honest-to-goodness, home cooked meal since I got here. Twas hamburger rice casserole, which has been one of my favorite dishes since I was a child (it was pretty much the only way my poor mother got me to eat veggies). I wasn't sure how well it was going to work- I was using brown rice instead of white, it began to burn as soon as I put it in pan with butter, the shredded carrot idea was not working for me, the smell of garlic and raw meat were making my hyper-sensitive gag reflex very unhappy, etc...In the end I just threw it in the oven and hoped. After a while, it smelled extremely delicious...and then it started looking extremely delicious...and then I took it out and fed it to my roommates and they all said it was extremely delicious :) Success! It was a little saltier than I'm used to, but still quite good. So...I guess the point of this is...I *can* cook real food.

This is just something completely random I really wanted to post.

This is my grandmother. And she is just absolutely gorgeous. I was looking at her wedding pictures around midnight last night, and I just had to point out how beautiful she is.

Third section of this post: My dad is a pretty cool guy. I think one thing I really like about him is how clearly and honestly he looks at life...he sees things as they are, not letting covers and "decorations" deceive him at all. And that's cool. It also might be why he's such a pessimist, but if it helps him have one of the most brilliant minds I know, then hey! No big deal if the glass is half empty. Well, he actually doesn't see the glass, but...that's another story.

I'm a Survivor

Somehow, I managed to make it through the first week of college classes! It's been pretty exciting...Mondays and Wednesdays I go to Book of Mormon, Descriptive Acoustics of Music and Speech (this class is going to kill me!), Biology, and American Heritage, go to my apartment and do as much homework as I can, and then go back for my tap dance class. Tuesday, Thursday I have an 8am Humanities class and then work till 5:30 :P Pretty fun...

My Friday's were supposed to be great- 3 classes, first one at 10, done by 3, booyah. And then all my classes decided to have their labs that day...so now it's just as busy as MW, plus I work after I'm done with classes. Hooray? It's ok though, school and work are still quite fun :)

On Friday I had the wonderful opportunity to see Lea Salonga perform here at BYU. That woman is absolutely beautiful.

This is my somewhat failed attempt to take a picture of the program...that is her beautiful 40-year-old face. I hope I look that good when I'm 40. And I hope I sound that good when I'm 40! Goodness! She was fantastic! She sang quite a variety of music...opened with Feeling Good (Michael Buble style), sang a variety of Les Mis and Miss Saigon (Yum!), a Filipino song, the extended Disney's Reflection...she invited a college student to come and sing a Whole New World with her- how cool would that be?!? And he sounded dang good too. Just for fun, she sang Pokerface, which was awesome/hilarious.

She has the most perfect vibrato I've ever encountered- I was singing all day today, wishing I could sound like her :) Someday...

I found out today that my high school choir teacher accidentally called someone Hannah Thomas the other day. Ah, I feel missed.

One last thing- my theme for this semester of college is "Look up, like a little child." Before I started classes, my dad gave me a father's blessing and said those words. Then my bishop talked about it at ward prayer. And then it was mentioned in my Book of Mormon class. So I decided I should probably pay attention :) I put the two phrases on post-its and stuck them on my mirror to see every day. I only hope I will remember.