1 Year Later

1 Year Anniversary

Happy 1 year anniversary to us. On December 29th we celebrated one year of marriage. What the heck are you suppose to do for your first wedding anniversary? Don't ask us, it was challenging to come up with something. We decided against anniversary presents, except that I insisted Patrick get me flowers. Patrick has some deep confusion and anxiety about getting a woman flowers. He doesn't understand why he should buy a frivolous decoration that will die in a matter of days. He has admitted to me that this stems from his mother's beliefs on flowers. Don't worry, Sally, I get it. So, we compromised. I got to pick out flowers that were still alive and in soil (still living). The flowers just happen to have glitter all over them and almost a month later I still find specks of sparkles on my husband's cheeks.

That night we made curry for dinner and ate our wedding cake for dessert. The top tier of our wedding cake was masterfully preserved. It then sat in my parents' freezer for months, until the freezer door was left open and there was a catastrophic meltdown. Then we reclaimed the cake brick and stored it in our freezer, until anniversary day. We had forgotten what flavor cake the top tier was. When we cut into it, we saw that it was poppy seed cake with raspberry filling. I know a lot of wedding cakes fall victim to freezer burn and most just don't make it at all, but our cake was delicious! It was worth the wait.  

After the food, we watched a comedy show. Patrick had set up a projector in our room and somehow engineered it to project on our ceiling so we could just lay in bed and watch the show. Oh, the luxury.

What Jessie has to say about marriage after a year: It's pretty great to have someone to be with me all the time. That is by far the best part about year one-- the constant companionship. I've moved 3 times since being married, which is 3/4 of all the moves in my entire life. We made more money together than single. We spent more money together than single. There are more things to clean... and half the time it's not my stuff. This year Patrick helped me stop a bad habit. This year I cleaned up his projectile vomit. Ultimately, I feel like a more well rounded, balanced, selfless person after being married for one year.

What Patrick has to say about marriage after a year: "I ran out of things to fix a lot faster than I thought I would. We should buy a house." He is currently organizing the cords behind the TV and organizing the kitchen cupboards. He doesn't really feel like writing right now, but he did manage to say "Sometimes it's fun and we go to a water parks and sometimes it's boring and we have nothing to do on a Saturday night." But he wishes to convey that it was more positive than negative.

***

"The Menu"

Food. For the past year, I've been creating and perfecting "the menu." The menu is a spreadsheet in google docs that has every meal we've made and a link to the recipe. This part is pretty much my cookbook. From that list, I pick through it each week and decide what sounds good. I have separate tabs for each week of the "term." I'm currently using term segments because Patrick is in school. I don't know what will happen when we lose track of the school schedule, though. Each week tab has a week calendar for lunches and dinners. From there I fill in the blanks. Once I've decided what we are eating for the week I look through the ingredients the recipes need and the ingredients we have in our kitchen. I love this system and now if I ever don't want to create a week's menu, I have 52 weeks I can choose from to just replicate.

This week was an expansion week. I tried 2 new recipes. The first one was mochi ice cream balls. I love mochi ice cream because its delicious ice cream surrounded in this chewy sweet dough. All the recipes I looked up told me how simple and fast it was to make the mochi balls. They were wrong. I'm refusing to share the recipe with you. But here is a picture of how it turned out.

It looks like half thawed chicken breasts.

A few days later, we had some friends over and I made Chicken and Gnocchi Soup. This is a soup option at Olive Garden. If Olive Garden serves it, well then so should I. This one actually turned out just the way I'd hoped it would. It made the cut to stay on the menu. This is a link to the recipe: Chicken and Gnocchi Soup. The recipe calls for frozen gnocchis, but I made my own gnocchis from this recipes: Homemade Gnocchis.

***

Wedding Announcement

Speaking of marriage and stuff...Kevan is engaged to Krislyn. They are getting married on May 24th, 2014. I actually don't remember if I already announced this on the blog or not, but I'm too lazy to check right now. I'm pretty sure everyone and there cat already knows about the engagement anyway, but here it is publicly documented. They really should just wait until December 29th so all of us siblings can have the same wedding anniversary, but I guess those love birds can't wait that long. Congrats.

Not their actual engagement.

 

***

Computadora

I want you all to meet the newest member of our family-- Baby Ace. It's actually an HP Sleekbook, but we originally thought we were going to get an Acer laptop. Technically we should call the computer baby HP, but I like baby Ace much better. 

I shopped relentlessly for the perfect computer for me. You may ask, "why the new computer?" Well my MacBook died. Actually just the screen stopped working, but that kind of makes it hard to use. When I took it into the Apple Store to get it fixed, they called it "vintage." My 5 year old Macbook had become obsolete and the Apple store no longer carries parts for that model. Defeat. It was more economical to buy a new computer than to fix my old one. 

A funny thing happens when you are purchasing a big ticket item, YOU LEARN SO MUCH! I found out about specs. I didn't even know what specs were or meant before this whole process, but now I'm basically an expert. We ended up getting a refurbished laptop from Best Buy. I'm thrilled with it. Apparently, Patrick is thrilled with it too because he uses it all the time.

***

The Job Search

Patrick graduates in March. That means the job search has begun. He hasn't technically applied anywhere, but hopefully this week. We have decided to search for jobs within the scope of the Willamette Valley-- most likely Portland. Related to Patrick's graduation, he is working on his senior project and studying for the FE exam (fundamental engineering exam). His senior project is to build a human powered flour mill. Basically that means a stationary bike that grinds wheat into flour. He pulled a vacuum out of the dumpster today because it had a part he might be able to use for his project.

I'll keep you posted on the career hunt.

BRM

Happy Veteran's Day and Happy Lady Legs Day:

11-11-13 



I want to give a shout out to my brother, Kevan. He passed his real estate exam and got a job with Remax. Good job bro-man. 

Kevan playing with 2 Bingo cards.

Kevan invited the family out to El Sol to announce his good news, but right before going to the restaurant the whole family went to the Elk's Lodge to play Bingo. We only played 3 games, but guess who won. Okay, it was me. I won 2 tickets to Regal Cinemas. Definitely using the tickets for Hunger Games: Catching Fire. 

Bingo has a special place in the heart of the Willes family. We play Bingo mixed with White Elephant every year for Thanksgiving. In Bingo, B11 is often refereed to as lady legs because the double ones look like legs. Also, today is November 11th, making today Lady Legs Day. This year for Thanksgiving, Patrick and I are going to Bend with my family and the Killens. Patrick's parents and sister, Shadra, are going out to Ethiopian food for Thanksgiving, which I think is quite funny. However, if you are with family or friends and you are eating good food, then you are doing Thanksgiving right.

Now that we live in Corvallis, we don't see Patrick's family as much, but we did spend this weekend up there with them. It was like a dream vacation, full of so many fun activities. 

We went up to Portland on Friday because Patrick was touring Bob's Red Mill with his senior design group. Bob's Red Mill is sponsoring their project (a human powered wheat grinder.) He got to see the whole process and all the machinery. If Patrick could get a job working there, he would love his career. I'm all for it too. He's already working on winning over the man in charge. Bob and Patrick apparently became buddies at a luncheon a few weeks back and Bob felt comfortable enough to call Patrick "Pat." But then again, when you're 85 you can call anyone anything you like.

I picked Pat up from the mill store and then we crossed the street and went inside Dave's Killer Bread quarters. That's right, Bob's Red Mill and Dave's Killer Bread are right across the street from each other. Infact, Dave's Killer Bread moved into Bob's Red Mill's old building. And yes, Dave's Killer Bread does buy their wheat/flour from Bob's Red Mill. These long three-letter bread companiy names are killing me, I really should have started abbreviating them like 5 sentences ago.

Patrick in front of BRM holding a BRM bread loaf.

Jessie in front of DKB quarters. 

That night we celebrated Tucker's birthday. We went to Out of This World Pizza. This place is pretty much Chucky Cheese, but galactic themed. Patrick and I are looking forward to having kids so that we have an excuse to do the activities that kids get to do. like the play structe, slides, and inflatables. Is that a good enough reason to have kids? Sure, why not. We'll feed them and love them too, don't worry.

Saturday we went to OMSI with Sally and Jerome (Patrick's parents.) Tucker and his kidlets came later. Sherlock Holmes is the featured exhibit right now. Our job was to solve the mystery. We might have been a little over zealous out of the gates because we read pretty much the entire history and inspiration of Sherlock Holmes, searching for secret clues in efforts to solve the mystery (none of which were relevant to the actual mystery). Once we got to the clearly defined mystery solving section, it was fun and challenging.

We built this structure at OMSI and exactly 1.3 seconds after finishing, a small boy attacked it and it was demolished. So we built it again and got this picture. After the second build, it took more like 39 seconds before a small boy destroyed it. Patrick was mad at small boys for a while.

OMSI was followed by Five Guys and then Ender's Game at Cinetopia. I really liked the movie. It is up there with Now You See Me (probably my favorite movie of the year.) I was distracted by the fact that Ender looks a lot like my cousin, Andrew. My mom thought the same thing. Thanks for validating me, Mom.

Routine

We are in a routine now. I go to work and Patrick goes to school. Then we eat dinner and play a game. Being in a routine is satisfying for now, but being in a routine is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from being in a RUT. What a dreadful 3 letter word. Don't worry though, we do mix it up in our lives. Here is the spice in our lives this season:

We went to an OSU volleyball game last Friday with the Buys family. It was the "spike out cancer" game and we got free pink T-shirts to support breast cancer awareness. Pretty much everyone in the crowd was wearing pink. So when we were trying to meet up with Dar and Trevor at the game we thought it would be funny to text them "You can't miss us, we're wearing pink." Indeed, it was funny.

We also joined the stake choir. We are practicing for the fireside meeting celebrating the 50th anniversary of our stake. On November 3rd at the Stake Center we are having a fireside to commemorate the past 50 years. All are invited. We are singing "Faith in Every Footstep" and "How Firm a Foundation." Both are beautiful, but this arrangement of "How Firm a Foundation" by our choir director is so so so pretty. This arrangement actually makes me want to be good at singing. I'm probably the least experienced one in the choir, but whatever.

As you may remember, a few months ago we 100%ed the Lego Star Wars game. Well, we've done it again. This time we 100%ed the Lego Harry Potter years 1-4 game. It was full of magical surprises and a few glitches. One of the glitches made it impossible for us to get the 100%, so we started over after getting 75% of the way done. Worth it.

Sunday we engineered a spider wed in our window. It is made out of yarn. I love it and am thinking it is the beginning of a new family tradition.

I've been intending to get my passport renewed for a while now, but never got around to it. I finally planned to go, but alas the government shutdown the day I was planning to go to the courthouse. If you get married, you have a year to update your passport for free. If you wait longer than a year, you have to pay for the renewal. I'm coming up on the year mark so I have to get it done soon. I formatted my own passport photo online instead of paying $10 for the courthouse to do it. It was kind of a fiasco, but ended up working out in the end. Plus, now I have 3 extra 2" by 2" photos of myself; just what I've always wanted.

Top 10 Moving and Groovin' Highlights

There comes a point in every blogger's blogging life when they have to apologize for not writing recently. I could do that, but I won't. It's like that time that the Louderbacks came over to our apartment to see it for the first time and Patrick and I decided not to apologize for its unkempt-ness, but instead just not be ashamed. This is how we left our house and apologizing won't make it any cleaner.

For this episode of Being Beesley, let's pretend like this is ESPN and it's late at night after all the games are over and we're going over the highlight reel. So here is the highlight reel of the past month.

Top 10 Highlights of the Month

10. Primary Program Practice: 

The Friday before the St Helens First Ward Primary program, we went to the program practice slash pizza party. The kids behaved really well during the practice (better than they behave in church... what's up with that?), until they were dismissed to the gym for pizza. All hell broke lose, which is ironic because we were in a church. There were so many basketballs being tossed, kicked, bounced, rolled, and every other verb in the English language; it was a miracle I didn't get hit. The kids were doing pretty much everything with those basketballs except actually play basketball (basketball isn't as fun when you're 3 feet tall). On Sunday the primary program went just great. We sang 2 songs in the program that were not in the children's hymn book. In my opinion, they need to update that book... and make sure to take out those songs no body knows or likes.

This was our one consistent primary student, Jonathan. Right after I took this photo, I turned the camera around to show him the photo and he said "Oh cool, you got the American flag in the picture."

The primary was mostly girls, but notice how the majority of the kids in this picture are boys. Mobbing the pizza. 

9. Patrick finished his internship: 

Good job, Patrick!

8. Thank You Card: 

After our last Sunday in St Helens, we were at home and we got a knock on the door. It was Jonathan and his mom. He came by to drop off a card that said, "Dear Bro. + Sis. Beesley, Thank you for being my greatest teachers ever. You guys taught me so many things and were so good. Please write to me when you move if you can. I will miss you very much. Love, Jonathan" (backwards "J" and all). His mom may have written most all of the note, but we still loved it. 

7. Sauerkraut Festival: 

We went to the Scappoose, Oregon Sauerkraut Festival. First of all, for those of you who don't know what sauerkraut is, don't be ashamed, we didn't either. It is fermented cabbage. For those of you who don't know where Scappoose, Oregon is, don't be ashamed either. I feel like we really got the full experience out of the Sauerkraut Festival.

Cabbage centerpieces

Cabbage bowling

Sauerkraut sandwich

6. Yo Mama's Frozen Yogurt: 

We went to Yo Mama's Frozen Yogurts grand opening and got really cheap frozen yogurt. It was so cheap we actually both went back and got another cup of yogurt. They had fun flavors and lots of topping choices that I had never seen offered before. They also had "iPads" at the tables for customers to play on. Patrick played Minecraft and I played some dress up doll game. We're five. 

Technology.

5. Decorating Our New Apartment: 

When Patrick and I retire, I think we'll just volunteer as house organizers. We spent 2 days straight purely unpacking and sorting out all of our stuff in our new apartment. Here are some pictures of our new place.

Living room

Kitchen and dinning room

Bathroom

Bedroom

4. Work and School: 

I am working at Underwater Audio again and Patrick is back at OSU. The big thing for him is his senior project. He really wanted to work with his BFFFFFFFF, Spenser, but they were put in different groups. Sad. Patrick's senior project is creating a human powered wheat grinder. He's going to like it just fine.

3. Church:

 We are in the Corvallis 1st ward. That is the same ward we were in before when we were in Corvallis. This time around we have friends in the ward' Trevor and Dar Buys. They just got married last month. We are so grateful for their existence in the ward.

2. Internet: 

If any of you have tried to get internet from Comcast, I hope you did not have to suffer the way we had to suffer. I don't know how many hours we spent on the phone, but I called comcast 21 times (none of the calls were helpful). I mean I called so many times and talked to so many representatives that I could work for Comcast. This is all you have to do: 1) Ask for customers telephone number, verify with address and name 2) Ask them why they are calling 3) No matter what they are calling about assure them that you can help them 4) transfer them because you lied and actually have no idea how to help them 5) Next customer please. 

1. Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze: 

On Friday we went to a farm in Monmouth to get pumpkins and go through a corn maze. We got all the way out there just to find out that the corn maze had been ruined by the storm. It has been raining for like 3 weeks straight in Oregon, so I guess we shouldn't have been surprised about the news, but we were. We still ended up getting pumpkins. Usually I get a pumpkin like the week of Halloween and enjoy it for a few days, but having the pumpkins around all the way at the beginning of the month has been a great idea and has already invited the autumn spirit.

You can see how the corn has fallen over. Not much of a maze.

Product Placement

We are about to move back to Corvallis. There are certain things I will miss about Saint Helens, but for the most part I'm ready to move. Whilst packing up all our possession, It's really given me time to reflect on all the great things we own. And sometimes when you have great things, you just want to praise them. Unfortunately, all of these great things are inanimate objects and have no capacity to appreciate my comments, but hopefully you will. 

Top 10 House Hold Items The Beesleys Recommend

10. One Style Sock- Some people believe there is a laundry monster who eats your socks in the dryer, creating a frustrating black hole of endless unmatched socks. whether real or fictional, it does not matter if you only have one style of sock. All of my socks are from Forever21 and look exactly alike. All of Patrick's socks are from Hanes' Goodwill line of "Slightly Imperfect style Socks" and look exactly alike. I'm not kidding, that is literally what they are called. Although, each sock is slightly imperfect and unique, my 20/20 vision can't tell the difference between any said pair.

9. Quick Dry Towels- We recently bought a whole matching set of towels. They were 50% off at Fred Meyer, so we got them for $4 each. We bought them because they were fluffy and soft, but still felt absorbent. When we got them home, I realized they are quick dry towels. Usually when I'm washing towels they take so long to dry, but these ones dried at the same rate as the other clothes. So great.

We got purple towels. For some reason, the color purple always makes me think of the Marchants.

8. Bulk Spices- Winco sells spices in bulk. Fantastic idea for anyone who doesn't want to spend $6 for a lifetime supply of Coriander. And here's a little fact for you: apparently, ground spices have an average shelf life of 6 months.

7. LA's Totally Awesome Laundry Pre-Wash- It's like Shout, but it's a dollar at the Dollar Tree. I was skeptical about it because it was at the dollar store and because the name is so ridiculous, but it got amazing reviews. In my experience, it works just as well as Shout.

6. Cheese Grater- We recommend a cheese grater with a box to catch all your cheesy goodness. We got one from Kitchen Aid, but we just saw an even bigger one at Ikea that was really neat too. The box helps contain the cheese and it's easier to grate, with less chance of slicing your finger.

5. Safeway Just for U- I'm a die hard Winco fan, but when we moved to St Helens the only shopping options I had were Safeway and Walmart. This Walmart has a very limited selection of food, so I shop at the overpriced Safeway. But here's the thing, Safeway just came out with the Just for U program/ app. They show you all their deals and you get even more coupons for using the app. It makes shopping at Safeway a little less heartbreaking when I get to the check out. Also, I get gas rewards points to Chevron and Safeway gas stations. I'll take it.

4. Silverware- Yes cavemen, I recommend using silverware. Patrick and I both grew up in households with the 5 piece silverware: knife, big fork, big spoon, little fork, and little spoon. Since we don't host elegant  five course meals daily, we decided to cut the frill and just get one size of knife, fork, and spoon. It makes life just a little bit less complicated. Plus, have you noticed that silverware trays can't get their act together? I swear the standard cutlery tray has 4 vertical slots and the weird baby horizontal one in the back. Whose silverware are they catering to, no one likes using the back of their drawer.

3. Powdered Milk- I buy powdered milk from the bulk section of Winco. It's really handy if you run out of milk or if you are using a recipe that uses a lot of milk and you just don't feel like pouring half the jug in the bowl. 1/3 powdered milk + 1 cup warm water = 1 cup milk. Warning, don't use for drinking (tastes gross), just cooking/baking.

2. Oxo Good Grips Smooth Edge Can Opener- We purchased this can opener shortly after we were married because it is the best can opener I've ever used. It was $21 which is pretty spendy for a can opener, but so worth it. Well, when we used our brand new can opener, it sucked! We were prying off aluminum lids for a good 6 months. Boo. I finally wrote an email to Oxo about how disappointed I was and they gave us a new one! Apparently they will replace any of your Oxo products if you send them the product and your receipt. The new one works like a charm and I'm now a more loyal fan of Oxo.

1. Toaster Oven- By far the best product we own is our toaster oven. It is awesome! I wouldn't know how to survive without it. The one we have is extra special because it is a baby oven, but it also has a purely toaster function on top. I love it because it's like a really fast oven. Just the other day,  Patrick fit an entire Totino's Pizza in the toaster oven.

 So here's to hoping that all our stuff makes it through this move in one piece. And here's also to hoping that Patrick will do a satisfactory job at driving the U-haul. Although, a part of me is also hoping he mildly dings the truck a bit so that the U-haul insurance we bought will be worth it. 

Is that bad?

An actual picture of our stuff in the back of a U-haul.

By the way, we're doing great. We went on a picnic for lunch last week. Hi!

Pinterest Challenge

For the past week, I've been Pinteresting. I picked 7 Pinterest projects to recreate and document. I decided to do this, just for the fun of it. So here are the seven wins and fails of my Pinterest week. The inspiration pictures are on the left and my recreations are on the right.

1. Nail Art- The project was to use tape to make sharp, clean designs on your nails. I didn't have all the same colors as the inspiration, but I picked similar colors, as best I could. Everything went according to plan until I peeled the tape off. I thought I waited long enough, but I guess not because I peeled off half the paint jobs.

Although I consider this a fail, I was inspired to do a much more simple design on my toe nails. I really like how they turned out (no tape was used).

2. Clear Ice Cubes- This one is under the category of life hack. I'd never had a desire to make perfectly clear ice cubes before, but this pin planted a slightly huge desire to make clear ice. The pin said that if I boiled water and then put it in the tray, I could get clear ice. It didn't work. As you can see in the comparison picture, the two ice cubes (the regular cube on the left and one the boiled ice cube on the right) look the same and are both not clear. I did some more research and found out that you need to boil the water twice. So I did. The result was equally as disappointing. Turns out, you need to use distilled water, boil it, let it cool, boil it again, let it cool, and then freeze it. Too much work for me. So I let this one fail. Patrick is still motivated to find an alternative method of developing clear ice.

3. Halloween Wreath- First of all, I get a lot of flak from Patrick because 9 out of 10 times I say wrea-f-th, instead of wreath. This is especially embarrassing, because I sold Christmas wreaths in middle school one year and I'm fairly confident that I wasn't saying it correctly back then either. Anyway, this project actually turned out wonderful (finally a win). I got all the materials for less than two dollars from the local thrift store. It's not exactly the same as the inspiration, but I still love it. 

4. Flag Birthday Card- I really enjoy making greeting cards. My dream job would be to work for Hallmark and make punny greeting cards forever. This card isn't punny at all, but it's darn cute. I liked how the card came out so much that I went on a card making spree! 

5. Chocolate Chip Cookie in a Mug- I've made the brownie in a mug before. It comes out fine, but nothing great. I've tried macaroni in a mug before. That was just gross. I seemed to choose to not remember these less than spectacular experiences when I decided to make the cookie in a mug. It turned out very pasty. Also, I would like to add that it was probably just as much work to make the one cookie in a mug as making a whole batch of cookies. The only difference is the whole oven thing and the baking time. I won't ever make the cookie in a mug again. 

This was probably my worst attempt at recreating the inspiration picture.

6. Glow In The Dark Bubbles- It sounded like such a cool idea. Even after failing at it, it still sounds like such a cool idea. I flicked the glow stick inners into the bubble solution. I somehow imagined that the glow stick would be more liquid and easily pour into the bubble bath, but it came out in clumps. It stayed in clump form in the bubble solution, but it made the solution glow so well... for like 2 minutes. Even if 2 minutes was actually long enough to enjoy your bubbles, the bubbles don't glow in the dark. All of the glow clumps gathered on the bubble wand and refused to stick to the bubble. 

7. Tin Can Lantern- Oh man, I'm exhausted just thinking about this project. So... this project actually takes us back to ice cubes. The first step is to freeze water in the empty tin can. Fast forward a few hours and I had an ice cube again. Surprisingly, the ice cube was pretty clear. Patrick and I both marveled at it, after failing so poorly at making clear ice intentionally. From there you clamp it down to the table and take a hammer and nail to the tin can to make the holes. It worked so good, until the can started dripping. "PATRICK GET ME A BOWL, STAT!" Bowl was retrieved and was catching the dripping. I kept poking holes and the dripping got more serious. My first thought, "I need a bigger bowl." After more hammering, I finally released the flood gates. It was then that I realized why the ice was so clear... it was water. I hadn't let the water completely freeze. So with about 1/6 of the tin can punctured, I had no more ice. It is imperative to have a solid core, or else you will have no stability for the thin can. But how do you make ice in a container that is scoured in jagged holes? We put a plastic bag in the can and filled that with water. After an hour in the freezer all of the water had drained at into a bowl and froze the can in it. The plastic bag got a hole in it and slowly leaked out all of the water. I thought it was over, but Patrick MacGyvered a water bottle/ tape rung/ hand towel into a support structure. I was able to successfully finish the project. Painting it was also a disaster, but i'll spare you the details. 

Final Score:

3 wins- 4 fails