Stream of Consciousness

Sometimes I think about my life and I think about how aLLLLLLLLLLLLLL my stinkin life I've had goals and known what I wanted to do and then I grow up and it's like wait I didn't really want that HOLD ON what do I even want and normally I'm okay until someone asks me what I want to be when I grow up.

How come I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up when I was 7, but I don't know any more?

I know I have to have patience and faith and stuff but oh man sometimes IT WOULD BE SO NICE to just get a glimpse like God tells me hey Anna okay here's how it's gonna go

This is when you will get married

This is who. He's really great, really.

This is what's gonna happen when you graduate.

And you're going to be really really happy

I guess that's the only thing I can count on. I DON'T KNOW what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go out in the real world and meet people. I'm gonna experience life. And the one thing that's sure? I'm gonna be happy.

I need a new camera to photograph my cooking endeavors

So I kind of experimented with a few recipes today to make White Chocolate Cranberry Walnut Whole Wheat Yogurt Cookies. I know... they sound amazing, right? They are. Maybe I should come up with a new name for the recipe.

Like amazingness.

Or yum yum yum yum yum.

White Chocolate Cranberry Whole Wheat Yogurt Cookies

(aka amazingness aka yum yum yum yum)

• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips
• 1 cup Craisins
• 1 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 
  
• Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease cookie sheets.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the brown sugar, white sugar, butter and shortening until light and fluffy. Stir in yogurt and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture until incorporated, then mix in white chocolate chips, Craisins, and walnuts. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until the edges begin to brown. Cool for a minute on the cookie sheets before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

You can add as few or as many white chocolate chips/walnuts/Craisins as you would like. I went for more because for me, more is better.

EnJOY!

I think they're somewhat healthy...

P.S. I took the picture with my camera phone. Imagine how good they would look with a REAL camera.

Real World and Anna Fantasy World (both constructed) COLLIDE!

So... hippie girl is really growing on me. I mean like really. Today I went to the library to print off my paper before class and I saw her. She was sitting cross-legged on a bench with her hippie boyfriend and smiled and waved at me. But that's not why I like her the most...

We were in class today and the girl doing her presentation brought cookies (props for cookie girl. I gotta get more creative with these names). Anyway, she had a big bowl of them and was about to start passing them on our side of the room when Texas girl yelled out, "Start them over here!" We all moaned as the delicious looking cookies were stolen from our grasp. Hippie girl looked down and mumbled under her breath, "Texas girl strikes again."

I nearly fell out of my seat.

I looked at her and said, "Did you just call her 'Texas girl'?"

"Yeah, I can't remember her name," she said, and we chuckled together.

Only she didn't know why I was really chuckling.

Could my life get any awesomer?

OH Myyyyyyy LIFE!!!

Oh man it has been so so so so so so farrrrrr too long since updating my blog! I need to make some kind of goal for writing in my blog. How does 3 times a week sound? I think I've been hanging around missionaries too long... but that's not a bad thing.

SO FIRST OFF I wanted to write because of my class. I'm taking an adolescent literature class and LOVE IT by the way but anyway one of the most amusing parts of our discussions is just listening to the opinions of different people in the class and I totally know that was a run on sentence thank you because sometimes they are just fun to write you know?

Wait.

Back UPPPP.

Don't all Mormons have the same opinions?

I mean, I know we differ a bit, like... Who's better? Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh? ... but in the end we all hate Obama, right?

WRONG my friends.

First scene:

"I might be a little more pro-choice than other people in the room, but I don't think this book was necessarily leaning one way or the other," says the girl sitting next to me. I might have ducked for cover after throwing out such a liberal alarm word, but she holds her ground. "It might have been a little harder for me if I had had an abortion myself, but I really think the author leaves the issue open. He's trying to get us to think about it and form our own opinions."

You go barefooted hippie girl who sits next to me and wears long dresses and doesn't wear make up and sits in her desk cross-legged and giggles to herself while reading books. You gotta hand it to her for doing homework DURING class. And for openly exposing her more liberal self in the middle of class. Even if it is a literature class.

Next scene:

Me walking out to the vending machine to get a snack. I hit the wrong button and get the wrong granola bar, so I'm already a little shooken up. Well, Texas girl comes up to me. I'm gonna call her Texas girl because she loves Texas. I mean, I LOVE Texas but this girl LOOOOOOO-OOOO-OOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOVES Texas. We've talked about it before, as you might have guessed.

"That discussion made me a little sad." says Texas girl. Uh oh. I see where this is going.

"Yeah there seem to be a lot of people with a lot of different opinions in our class, huh?" I say, trying to pick up the pace back to class and avoid a conversation I don't really want to get into.

"Mmmm-hmmmm. All I know is some of us in that class are going to heaven and some aren't" she says and sighs. I look at her to make sure... nope, she's not joking. "Well, I guess that's just one less spot I have to worry about beating out up there!"

Luckily we've made it back to class and I can slip into my seat without having to respond. I mean, how DO you respond graciously to a comment like that? That's my personal conviction. Respond graciously to everyone, even if I don't agree with them. Which I didn't. Not with hippie girl or Texas girl.

It's just not easy being a not-sure-how-much-I'm-conservative-and-how-much-I'm-liberal kind of a person. I see why people go to one side or the other. At least you get like half the nation to agree with you.

So, I'm trying to figure life out... a bit at a time. This might sound a bit Bob Marley or the Beatles-esque (which is ok) but what it all comes down to is LOVE. Texas girl might be crazy. I'm fairly certain she is. I'm not all that sure about hippie girl's sanity level either. But I can still love the HECK out of both of them. I think that's what Jesus wants us to do.

P.S. The book we read is Unwind by Neal Shusterman. I loved it and recommend it to anyone looking for a good read. Also, it's not nearly as controversial as it sounds from this post.