Ze Vant My Blood

~ Highlight of the Day: A whole package of chocolate pudding (made better with a spoonful of cocoa powder) all to myself, just 'cause I can :) ~

 

 

This happened forever ago.

 But I planned on blogging about it, so gosh darnit I'm going to blog about it!

 

 

I'll begin by saying I don't like donating blood. It's just not natural to think, 'yes, I would love to part with a pint or so of what keeps me alive!'

 

At the same time, I understand the importance of it. So occasionally I do :)

 

I donated in Israel, and I was feeling pretty good about my contribution to society,

but the lovely ward recruiter guilted me into signing up ('guilted' as in asked me nicely with a nearly empty sign-up sheet). I was sure though, that I'd be ineligible.

 

So the day arrived,

and I make the guy look up Israel and Jordan and Turkey.

 

And then I make him look up Yellow Fever, and Flu, and Typhoid, and Pneumonia immunizations.

And you know what, I was good to go.

Until he asked for my ID. I didn't bring that. Oops.

 

But apparently they accept temporary ID's from the ID place in the Wilk, so after going through the whole process again we got to donated after all! 

 

Very excititng, I know.

The whole ordeal was totally worth this legit picture :)

 

And I probably won't be doing it for another 18 months

 (you know, the whole mission thing :)

So it's a good thing I got to!

 

Good Ol' Czech Food

~Highlight of the Day: Chicken and Rice for dinner. . . Mmmm :) ~

 

Peach Kenedleky. . . Cendedlicky. . . Cinedlacky. . . Knedliky!  

Yup. Knedliky. it's Czech for 'dumpling', and it's the best dinner ever.

 And this is how you make it:

 

Edible Weeds aka E.W.

~ Highlight of the Day: watching Troll Hunter ~

 

 

Purslane

Portulaca oleracea 

 

 

 

Working for the Pesticide crew at BYU has resulted in a few side effects.

 

First, I dream about killing weeds. Really. I do.

 

Second, I am now hyper-aware of said weeds (perhaps an explanation for the dreams). Dandelions never really bothered me. . . until I hunted them down in the lawns of BYU for 8 hours a day, several days in a row. After that you can't help but notice them in places you never have before. . . like on hikes and in people's yards, and on the back of your eyelids when you close your eyes.

 

Third, weed I.D. has become a fascinating subject that I love to read about during my lunch break. That's not too weird, is it? :)

 

Anyway, weeds have become an important part of my life, and in the last day or so an important part of my diet as well.

 

I truly have a salad bar sitting outside my door, thanks to the beautifully watered and unweeded flowerbeds that grace the mangled lawn of my apartment building.

 

 

 So this is the normal flower bed, with a normal amount of weeds

 

and. . .

 

 

This is the other flower bed. 

You can't even see some of those flowers anymore.

Like I said, a regular salad bar :)

 

 

Also, I splurged and watched Monster University in theaters, and do you know what I saw? Weeds! In the grass! Their turf is in terrible condition. . .

 

 

Stay tuned for more Edible Weeds :)

Para-cord Survivor Bracelets

~ Highlight of the Day: Saving Virginia's mint plant - the cute little (hungry) caterpillar

 has been relocated :) ~

 

I spent the weekend in Arizona, and learned how to make those survivor bracelets that are all the rage with all the prepared people. And since I know you are all super prepared people, I thought I'd share my new found knowledge :)

 

 

 You will need:

3 arm-lengths of polypropylene rope (para-cord)

(Or if you want more exact numbers, around 10ft for men and 8ft for women)

1 small buckle

1 lighter, or other source of flame

1 pair scissors

 

 

You probably don't want rope more than an 8th of an inch in diameter

or it will get pretty bulky, and if you get thinner stuff you may need more of  it.  

And the more pounds it can take the more useful it is - it may someday be supporting your weight as you dangle precariously off a cliff, you never know :)

1. To begin, cut your appropriate length of rope and find the middle of it. Pick up your cute little buckle and make sure the ends are curve-up, like a smiley face.

2. feed the middle of the rope through one end of the buckle. Make sure you are heading from the bottom to the top of the curve, or for the math-minded, from the convex side to the concave side.

 

 3. Then pull the cut ends of the rope through the loop and pull it tight. This secures the middle point of the rope to one end of your buckle.

 

 4. Feed the cut ends through the other side of the buckle, from the convex side to the concave (this picture has the buckle flipped upside down to what it previously was. . . it's ok, you can still do it!)

5. Measure the size of your bracelet on your wrist. It will get tighter as we tie it, so leave some space for that. I suggest one or two fingers width, but it depends entirely on how tight you want it to be.

6. Hold onto that length and don't let it slip! We are going to unbuckle the bracelet and start tying.

7. Start by folding the ends down, so the buckle is pointing straight up and all four strands of rope are headed down. Then take the left cord and cross it over the two cords in the back. This will form a backwards 'P'.

 

8. Take the right cord, pass it over the tail end of the left cord forming the 'P', and then back behind the two back cords.

9. Still using the right cord, push it up through the loop of the 'P'.

10. Go ahead and pull the rest of the cord through, and pull it tight. This first knot will be a little skewed, because it's the first. So if you think it looks a little lop-sided, you're doing fine.

11. Now if you've noticed, what used to be the right cord is now shooting off to the left, and what used to be the left cord is now going off to the right. This is important. The cord we initially made the loop of the 'P' with will always make the loop of the 'P'. So we're going to go back and forth between making backwards 'P's and frontwards ones. The first one we made was backwards, so this one should be exactly the same thing, just reversed.

Here's the steps one more time, reversed for the second knot.

 

12. Now it's just a matter of tying the knots consistently so they look even. The picture above is what two knots look like, the picture below is three knots.

13. Keep it up till you get to the other side of the buckle. If you want a lot of rope on there, try to keep the knots tight and close by adjusting them as you go.

 Just keep tying till you can't possibly fit another knot.

Here's the whole bracelet, buckled back together, with the extras still uncut.

At this point try it on. If it's too small or too loose it's not too late - simply work backwards, undo all the knots (this is good practice for that emergency situation anyway), make your length adjustment, and tie it again.

 

The tying goes pretty quick once you've got it down, so adjusting it before cutting the ends off it completely worth it if you want a good fit.   

14. After it's the perfect length you just cut off the extra, take that lighter we mentioned at the very beginning, and melt the ends to seal them.

A few things to be mindful of on this step:

 

 make sure you melt it enough to stop all unraveling. A raveled rope will be of no use to you on that cliff, and it's not too stylish either.

 

After melting the ends, let it cool for a second or two and then flatten it out with the flat edge of the scissors or another object you don't mind getting melted para-cord on. This will keep it from slipping through and coming undone before the emergency situation.

 

And last but not least, when you're flattening the melted ends, be careful not to meld them to the other strands of the bracelet. Unless, of course, this bracelet is purely for looks, and not to someday save your life. If that's the case then go for it - seal it all off completely and melt it all together so it'll never come undone.

 

If you want it to be functional, make sure you can work it through in a panic :)

 

 

And that's it!

Congratulations. You have a super cool, super useful para-cord survivor bracelet.

 

 

 

College Gardening At It's Finest

~ Highlight of the Day: FHE* at the Duck Pond :) ~

 

MY PERSIMMONS SPROUTED!!!

 

Remember that one post in December. . .

well, I am proud to introduce to you a brand new baby persimmon seedling:

 

 

Not quite sure what I'm going to do with a persimmon

 seedling while I'm gone for 18 months, but I'm sure I'll figure something out :)

 

And basil seedlings!

AND one of my irises is going to bloom!

Guys, you don't know how exciting this is. I thought I had totally killed these irises (after all, I bought them half way through last summer at an iris show in Pennsylvania, stuck them in the basement, flew them to Washington, packed them in a box to be moved to Arizona, and forgot to find them when I went home for Christmas. . . ) but apparently I didn't! 

 

This could be one of five cultivars. . .

'Red Skies'

 'May Debut'

'Kentucky Derby'

'Again and Again'

and 'Indian Chief'

 

I have no idea which one.

The suspense is killing me.

 

I love loving plants :)

 

*FHE stands for Family Home Evening, and its something most LDS families hold on Monday evenings. It usually consists of a spiritual thought/lesson, an activity, and a treat. Here at college we are organized into groups to hold FHE on our own (since we're not in family units). My calling in my ward is FHE leader :) gotta love it.

Rock Canyon

~ Highlight of the Day: A 3 hour nap :) ~

 

Jim Gaffigan has a few words on the topic of camping:

 

 

And I have a few pictures:

 

 

Do you see how legit this tent is? :) Emily's a regular mountain woman, we've discovered. Not only did she head up the whole trip, but she was the brains behind the lean-to thingy, the skill behind our campfire, and the master bag-packer.

 

It was soooooo cold last night.

We huddled together as best we could, but I think I maybe got 1 hour of sleep.

I have never been so happy for the morning :)

 

We were so prepared - we made these amazing tinfoil breakfasts,

and then totally forgot utensils of any sort. So I carved us a spork or two :)

 

We discovered that crossing streams in the daylight was infinitely easier than in the dark with only two flashlights between the five of us.

 

Emily discovered a fungi.

 

 

And I discovered flowers :)

 

 

Yep. We totally pulled it off. And this trip should be 

enough to tide us over till it's a little warmer at night :)