Around The Web: Dissecting Dialect

I stumbled upon this New York Times quiz that asks you questions about your pronunciations of words to pinpoint parts of the country your dialect has originated. This fun quiz has been around for a little while but I decided to share it with my family and take it again myself just to see what the results were. 

Half of my life was spent living in Akron, Ohio and the other half was spent growing up in Yuma, Arizona. My results are scarily accurate!

And here's Mom's who grew up in Kentucky:

Take it here and see what you get!

Busy Bidness

I've been busy, tired, and lazy. 

I've also been trying to have as much time with Russ before he leaves for deployment which is swiftly approaching. :(

Buuuuut, I do miss blogging. 

Here's what's been going on:

This past week and a half we've looked at three trucks.

There's Portland: which had a lot of potential but the outside was rough. Still considering. 

Seattle 1: a 1981 empty truck in really great shape that could be a great blank canvas for what we could get it for. Problem?... it's so short inside that it nearly touches my head (I'm 5'8"ish). 

Seattle 2: This is the front runner and it's nearly done as it just needs another electrical line run for the generator. My problem with the truck is that it's (what feels like a whooping) 25 feet in length. The price is wonderful but I'm afraid it might be too much truck for us. But then again, we might be so busy that we will need this space. 

We're still weighing our options and talking to each of the sellers...

I also want to share this deliciously wonderful birthday cake I made for my Mom!

It's a Black and White cake which is alternating layers of white cake and chocolate cake filled with alternating layers of white whipped and chocolate whipped filling. I tweaked it a bit and made the outside icing a mocha whipped icing which tasted delicious! I then covered the outside sides of the cake with white and chocolate curls.

Oh. Em. Gee. The layers! Look at those beautiful layers! 

Needless to say the cake, with it's lovely light, tasty filling and spongy-moist cake, wasn't around too long. 

We Wish(ed) You A Merry Christmas!

Who wants a very belated Christmas post?!

You do!

Well, even if you don't you're here and reading this so that's what you're going to get. 

Anyways, here's our lovely little dessert spread: Chocolate Pie, Chess Cake, Derby Pie and a little cookie assortment of hopscotch, chocolate crinkles, and snickerdoodles. We also had some yummy spinach dip. 

Before dinner I had the three of them find the pickle on the tree for a special 'pickle present.' Mom gave up rather quickly and Russ ended up finding the prize; a $10 Fred Meyer gift card. 

For Christmas Eve dinner we had ham, green bean casserole, scalloped pepper potatoes, rolls, and deviled eggs. 

And for Christmas entertainment we had my brother in a horse mask and Santa hat.

Ian stole Brayt's phone for a while and was trying to text some of his friends before he realized that he doesn't have thumbs. Or friends. 

At least Russ isn't camera-shy. 

The only picture I took on Christmas Day was Russ opening his black and white Batman statue in front of our roaring fireplace TV.

Absolute Resolute

I like the idea of making resolutions but they never really stick around after the first month of the new year for anyone. As pointless as it seems, I still try to make resolutions because I like the idea of a clean slate and I think that it's important to always want to improve yourself. So here's mine:

And I feel like I have to explain #5 a bit because in our selfie-obsessed world we live in, it seems kinda goofy to resolve to take more narcissistic images of oneself. But, I noticed something while I was scanning my Instagram photos from the last year. There is but TWO photos of myself out of 170 posts. Two. I despise my own image on camera so much that I'm missing out on taking memorable photos. Photos of having fun, photos with family. I'm omitting myself from happy memories. It probably doesn't help that I'm feeling the weight gain from the last year of not really paying attention to what I'm putting into my body.

But, just because I don't capture my image on camera doesn't mean that my body doesn't exist. I live in this body and my photos should reflect my life's journey even if my body doesn't always look the way I want it to. Well, I'm going to try anyway.

Happy New Year!