Introducing: Epipremnum or Golden Pothos

 

Photo Curtesy of abeautifulmess.typepad.com

Story: Last summer, Jess and I got addicted to garage sales.  Every Saturday, we’d wake up around 7 and scavenge the area for deals and treasures! We found that the best type of sale is an estate sale.  I found this plant for a dollar and fell in love with it for some reason.  It was straggly and in the ugliest gray container, but it spoke to me.  I took it home and started to take care of it.  It has produced 3 other plants, one of which is the home to our fish, another in our kitchen, and the last is with my parents along with the original.

Why I love it:

It purifies the air I breathe and is almost impossible to kill!  Wahoo!  It’s a great plant to start with and adds a nice, bushy accent to your house.

3 Easy steps to keep your Epipremnum healthy and happy!

1. Water it only when dry! Or, grow it in water and never have to bother about watering it.

2. Pinch off dead leaves and keep the soil free of dead leaves.

3. Trim off spindly stems with clean scissors every few months.

Common Mistakes:

This plant looks horrible if you don’t cut it back!  Really, it reminds me of homeless hair or world-record-breaking-long fingernails.  Your plant will look much fuller and healthier if you cut it back aaaand it will LOVE you for it. 🙂

 

Help! Style Crisis

Not to have an overly 1st world, girly problem or anything, but what’s the deal with how ugly professional clothes are???  Can I just say how much I hate the ill-fitting knit tops with the boring colored pants?  Bleh! I just started a new job a University and our office is considered “business casual” which translates in my mind to “blah and boring.”  I’m in this weird transitional phase of student to professional adult and I need to get my look to match.  Currently, I’d describe my look as natural, eclectic, and feminine. If one more person tells me I look like I’m 16, I may just have to inform them of how old they look.  After googling “easy ways to look older”  “easy ways to change up your look” and “good lipsticks for olive-skin” I realized that style advice is best not-found this way.  Any tips??

Fall “To-Do List” 2013

-Decorate for Fall and then  HALLOWEEN!!!

-Make Fall Sugar Cookies

-Go for a good bike ride in the leaves

-Drink warm cidar and hot chocolate

-Go for a fall picnic

-Carve pumpkins

-Make a gratitude turkey

-Have a Halloween Party

-Watch The Birds, Bride of Frankenstein, Anne of Green Gables, and Little Women

-Wear sweaters

-Make apple pie

-Buy candy corns

-Make caramel apples

-Make good Halloween costumes

-Host a spooky costume bike-ride

-Have a cozy campfire

-Go camping?? *maybe

-Go to a football game??* Again, only a maybe

-Watch General Conference in our PJ’s

-Make caramel popcorn

-Making soup

-Make pumpkin bread

-Make cinnamon rolls

-Go to a cemetery

-Adopt a kitty 🙂 meow!

 

Can I help with dinner? Yes.

From the time I was 5, I said those words almost everyday to my mother around 4:30.  I love kitchens.  I love ingredients.  I love recipe cards, recipe books, and old recipe magazines.  I love aprons.  I love whisks, pastry blenders, cutting boards, mixing bowls.  I love grocery stores.  Seriously, I freaking .love. grocery stores.  Locally owned grocery stores are my favorite: Dick’s Market, Macy’s, Mariano’s.  I love the displays of fruits and vegetables, a mess of color.  I love the sound of the squeaking carts.  Sometimes, I will carry a basket when I am feeling romantic or sentimental.  I love weaving through every isle and admiring the fantastic packaging, obviously a trait I inherited from my graphic design father.  I love free sample day and tasting the over-priced cheese balls and chicken nuggets.  I love fantasizing over new products and guessing how I could incorporate them into new recipes. I love running into friends and neighbors, quickly greeting each other because you know the other is in a rush.  I love putting the items o

nto the conveyor belt and trying to predict what the total will be.  I love trying to carry them all into my apartment in one trip.  I love pulling them out of their sacks and organizing them in the (hopefully clean) fridge.  When I go to use them, a feeling of intense domestic goodness flows through my veins.  It is as if they put a spell on me, making me want to adopt handicap animals and go clean my grandmothers home.  Then, a flood of memories wash over me.  My first recipe, scrambled eggs.  My dad taught me how to make them when I was 4.  My grandpa g taught me how to make “grandpa’s eggs” with eggs, mustard, pickles, onions, green olives, bacon, and lots of cheese.  My sister, grandma s and I made a batch of cookies once with whatever sounded good at the time.  We ended up with hundreds of cookies. In jr. high, my best friend and I made cakes on valentines day for our boyfriends that ended up looking like perfect replicas of Sleeping Beauty’s birthday cake because we forgot to put in the eggs. We gave the cakes to them anyway.  It was a loaf of banana bread that first brought my husband into my life.  While we were dating, I tried to win over his roommates and made dinner for them every night.  Durring our engagement, we would make each other dinner every night and it resulted in wonderful conversation, dancing, and of course, blissful kisses.  Now, I love being able to create something that will touch the soul of my husband.  I love bonding with people through food.  For me, true food is the bread of life.