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42/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

This is just a photo that I snapped real quick this morning at church. It isn't amazing in any way and, to be honest, I'd probably post something else if I hadn't run out of time today. But this is what I got.

I went to church by myself today, which wasn't weird at all. It's still strange and awesome to see family at church. But I miss my Brooklyn church friends so much. And....once again, the grass is always greener. No matter where I am, I'm always happy. No matter where I am, I'm always missing something. I don't think that Heaven will feel like that. So that's another thing to look forward to, as far as Heaven goes. I can't wait for that.

On another note, too bad about USA hockey, eh?

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Susan's Shower, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Today we hosted Susan's baby shower. She's my cousin's wife and she's absolutely amazing and I love her! And I love this picture! This is Suz and her daughter reacting to one of the gifts. Despite the faces, I think they were pretty happy.

Here are a few of my favorite moments of the day:


Kasey in my shoes.


Then she wanted a picture of me. She wanted me to hold Ezra.


SUCH SASS! They look better in my clothes than I do.


Knox, trying on clothes.


Reading a blessing over Knox.


You are so great! Love you and you can and will get through these last few weeks. Until then, just be thankful for this convenient built-in-shelf you have. I actually have the same thing, but it's on my back side. Crazy!

Enjoy the rest of the pictures here.

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40/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Don't ask me why. I'm not that inspired today. There are six yearbooks in my room. And I was 13 in the first one. Did you know boys are STILL short when they're 13? I was not still short when I was 13. Good thing I wasn't aloud to date........

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39/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

I thought you might like to see the after of my bookshelf (here's the before). It's packed tight full of things that I really like, besides the books.

So in efforts to tell you about some of them, you can check this out:

(High Res/Bigger Version Here)

Let me know if you have any questions.

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38/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

I like this. I think it's cool and beach-y. I made the whole thing for $2, which I spent on twine and white spray paint.

But everyone else in the house?

"Cool...what is it?"

"Is that a paper bag?"

"Cool."

"Who is that? Jesse or Joel?"
My dad really said that. Jesse and Joel are my tall, full grown male cousins. He didn't have his glasses on.

But I really like this thing I put on my wall. Then again...I also painted my entire room spearmint gum green with navy trim in high school and I liked that, too.

Let's take a closer look.

Isn't it beautiful? This is a card that my Brooklyn forever and ever roommate, Kate, gave me. She is very classy and she is crazy about art. And horses. And kids and dancing and music. And books. The world around her just moves her. She is constantly inspired by it.

Sarah Kim gave me this card. She has a thing for Monet. Like that girl in 10 Things I Hate About you who was "involved" with Will Shakespeare? I imagine Sarah has moments like that with Monet.

This is the inside of that card. This represents one of my most favorite New York moments: Dinner with Sarah Kim at Serendipity and she hands me this card and says "I'm going to read it to you right now out loud," and she did. And it was AMAZING and I loved that moment. Sarah Kim...I don't want to talk about it. Come to Texas.

And this.

Her.

My aunt, Monica, sent me this card when I was a freshman in college. It struck me. I wanted, and still do, to be her. Look at her!

I have made up many stories for her. I won't share them all, but she just looks so happy and so completely at peace. And...okay a little bit Jane Austen-ish. I can't help it. I project Jane Austen on to everything.

For some reason, I only have this side of the card. But it's a great side. All five kids (not so much anymore) signed it in their own interesting way. Monica, this card made my day back then and it still makes me so happy every time I see it.

If I ever find myself in a field, with a flower, and a house in the background, and I'm incandescently happy (movie? er...book?), don't be surprised if I re-create this moment.

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37/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

BOY OH BOY am I cutting it close today! Right now it's 11:13 PM. It'll be later than that when this post goes up.

After the laziest day ever yesterday (anyone who follows my Twitter feed can attest - I don't think I've ever been on that site so much), today was a complete turn around.

I woke up wanting only to enjoy IHOP's free pancake day with my friends Shelbye and Amy. But I knew that it couldn't happen because there were busy and I was kinda busy.

So I put on some clothes, braided my hair, hugged my dog and ran out the door into the COLD and mildly snowy (not really) morning to go babysit a sweet baby for a few hours. OH and I also made some coffee and fried an egg. That's for Misti. Then I was going to come home and work out and work on some cookies. But that didn't happen because I ended up babysitting longer which was wonderful! I didn't mind it at all. Such a sweet baby.

I got home just a little later than expected and plugged in my dead phone and had a message from Shelbye, desperate for a guitar player for the youth worship service tomorrow night.

By the way, three precious people I know and/or am acquainted with and/or am related to are in the hospital tonight. This is spastic, but it's related. Please say a prayer.

So I packed up my guitar, made a banana, blueberry, almond, vanilla soy smoothie (rushing - I threw in a bunch of random stuff). And I ate a few pickle slices. I don't know.

Then went to church and we practiced and then AMY walked through the door and I was so happily surprised to see her and her plans got cancelled and David, our drummer/pianist/guitarist/virtuoso/genius was already GOING to get PANCAKES with our friend Joe, so we went after practice and then ZOE and her friend showed up! And Zoe admitted that she reads my blog (they are coming out of the wood work - it's okay, water's fine!) HI ZOE!!

But IHOP was a disaster because our waitress was terrible and didn't realize she had 7 ravenously hungry and cheap people wanting to eat free food with a side of chewy eggs (or an entire other meal if you're David) and we WOULD NOT STAND for waiting for our food for over an hour.

So even though our hunger got the best of us at times, we still laughed and had fun, and eventually ate and parted ways in the cold and WHAT DO YOU KNOW I got the one thing that I wanted today! PLUS extra amazing people.

And then I came home. And my poor dog had to wait on me while I watched Lost. My dad recorded it. GO DAD.

But look at this little thing. Sitting on my bed. Willing me to put down the camera and make up for all of today's lost time.

So I leave my super-spastic non-edited blog to you because I.....



have somewhere to be.

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36/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

I woke up today intending to blog about a whole nother thing that I made this weekend. But a random tweet by the lovely Danielle about pretzel salt made me remember a recent recipe I'd added to my favorites bar. I often come across recipes that I like to save for a rainy day, and even though today is not rainy, it is cold again. So I cancelled my run and decided to indulge in some carbs instead!

I don't remember how I came across this blog, but it's a new favorite: The Lunchbox Bunch. And I'm pretty sure she's vegan, but that doesn't scare me. Her sinus clearing juice is a miracle worker!

I'm not quite sure why this caught my eye because I am not a pretzel lover, but soft pretzels...I can go for those. And whole wheat, I can go for that. I moderated the recipe a bit - honey for agave nectar (wish I had some!) and added 4 tsp of wheat gluten to avoid heavy and accomplish light. I also used the Kitchen Aid - why wouldn't I?! And no herbs. No thanks, herbs.

I'm pulling a slight Pioneer Woman with the photos, but I'll leave the descriptive how-to's for you to look up.

Here is is: Giant Soft Pretzels

Okay, that's another thing I changed. I made them not so giant. Instead of 5-9 I made 12. I'm into all this nutrition info, so I figured a 200 cal whole wheat pretzel was a good snack. Also, everyone knows that the more the dough meets, the softer and yummier it is! I wanted the dough to meet in every crevice.


Here is the pretty dough after rising for an hour.

And here I am punching that sucker down!

Knuckle prints.

Then you knead it for about two minutes with your big ol' hands...

And you'll end up here.

This is where I tried to divide it into 12 equal pieces.

Not all pretzels are created equal.

By the way, remember when I said I'd stop using the iPhone pictures so much? Well, not only am I using my camera, I shot these (and the last few days) on automatic. I still don't quite understand WHAT I'm doing, and if the dough jiggled even a little, it'd be all out of focus, but I'm pretty happy to have made that small step.

Okay, this is where you roll it out. Here, I played like it was play dough like it was dough.

Then you twist it around until you remember what a pretzel looks like.

Then brush a combination of olive oil and lemon juice on top (I don't think she did this on accident - she wants you to feel like you're being bad and using melted butter).

Look at these fatties! This is after 15 minutes in the oven. I brushed more olive oil and lemon juice on top and added salt to this bunch. Then popped them in for another 5 minutes.

And these babies got the sweet treatment. Cinnamon and sugar just like at the mall.

Yum.

Six savory, six sweet.

Not a hard guess which one I went in for.

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35/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Here to complete my mini series of "things I got when I was born" is this lovely framed cross stich.

I pretty much always knew where this came from because my mom wrote this on the back:



My Aunt Christine is the second-to-last born of the eleven children and she is really cool. My earliest memory of Christine is playing with her long fingernails. They were always so smooth and pretty and colorful! I was mesmerized by them. I thought she was so classy. Still do.

She's always been pretty crafty, as evidenced by this cross stich, and we've had a few little jaunts together. Mostly involving sugar, though. Not so much needles and thread.

Turns out Christine is still in the habit of giving precious gifts. When I was in New York, I received a few things in the mail from her two incredibly cute and smart boys. They were on my refrigerator for a long time...and I just couldn't throw them away.

I NEED THESE:

Moon soap? I love moon soap!

B's gotta dance sometimes.

And this is my favorite:

CARSON! I WANT TO GIVE YOU A HUG, TOO! I'M POOR AND COLD AND LIVE IN A TINY APARTMENT AND RIDE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION WITH SMELLY, MEAN PEOPLE EVERY DAY!!

That's what I thought whenever I saw this on my fridge. Sometimes I needed a hug, and Carson is pretty awesome at hugs.

And how cool are mama and baby tigers?

Anyway, Christine is a lovely aunt with a lovely family and I love the gifts she's given me. Judging by the way things are going so far...I'll probably just keep them forever.

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34/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Here's another thing I've always had.

I asked my mom what the story was behind this angel and she said, "I think Mimi, no, Grandma gave you girls those one year for Christmas."

That doesn't really work, seeing as I'm the oldest and was born this year:

Still! I think she's really sweet and she's sitting on my new bookshelf right where she belongs. Thanks, Grandma.

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33/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

In the process of cleaning the room I spent years 14-18 in, I've unearthed quite a few interesting things. A lot of junk, too. But I think I'm just about finished going through it all. I took a huge bag to Goodwill this morning (goodbye, Belmont freshman t-shirts and old text books!) and I've got a ton of things to recycle. Cleaning my room is helping the world. Leonardo DiCaprio would be proud.

Before I started cleaning, mom told me not to give away this basket. It's one of those things that was always there, but I didn't really know why or where it came from.

Turns out her brother and his wife - my uncle and aunt - Victor and Debbie, sent this potted-plant-filled-porcelain basket to the hospital the day I was born. About 25 years and 33 days ago. Somehow, I never knew that.

Mom told me that she really loved this basket. She thought it was really beautiful. Now that I know some young moms and and within that age range myself, I can understand how much a gift like this would mean. And when I heard her talk about it, I could imagine the joy that must have been transposed to every little thing around her after having a little girl. I think this basket still holds a little bit of that joy.

It really has nothing to do with me, but more with my mother's own journey from Oklahoma girl to Texas wife and mother.

I have some other things that I'm excited to share over the next few days. I guess before you can move forward, you have to know where you came from. I'm fusing who I was with who I am...and I'm excited about who I'm going to be.

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32/364, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Today is the 18th which means that I'm 25 and one month. Every 18th I'm posting a picture of myself so we can all see how much I grow!

I'm sitting in my room. I bought a ton of bedding today for the new bed that I don't have. But things were on sale and I just love new bedding so much. Things are definitely coming along.

A month ago I would have thought I'd be in Austin by now. But I'm still home, and that's okay. I feel very confident that it's where I'm supposed to be. So I need to create my own space because I've been without it for almost two months. The whole house is a mess because of me. I'm setting things straight!

I hope y'all like my month-old blog. I think it's a keeper.

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31/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

I'm getting lazy. My iPhone is just so much easier to grab and go than my camera. Better quality pictures coming soon.

I bought this bookshelf and put it together today. It's a work in progress, but I'm finally unpacking boxes and consolidating old stuff with new stuff. I guess I'll be here a little longer than I thought, so I figured I'd stock up on new furniture now to make the move less of an expensive event when the time actually comes.

I've become addicted to craigslist furniture listings, now. I'm constantly refreshing it and emailing people. I'm waiting to hear on a bed...it's time to retire my twin. I'm a growing girl!

I'm very intrigued by this post:

Mostly because it reminds me of Joey's white dog statue on Friends. I think I need it!

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30/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Empty church.

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29/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

My bedroom door. It's been like this since high school and I never really took notice of it as an adult, but I'm cleaning out my room today. And I just stopped to look at it. I can't decide if I met my high school-self today I'd think her an ignorant, naive, self-centered (come on, EVERYone?) teenager - and if I did think that, am I really just a pessimestic, bitter 20 something? OR would I think she was rad and had her whole life ahead of her? Would she believe me I'd I told her she'd refer to herself as "rad"?

On the other hand, wonder what she'd think of me these days. I think there would be good and bad surprises.

I won't list them. Sheesh, that'd be some exercise.

So now I have to decide: keep the door decs up or toss 'em? And when I say "toss them" I mean stick them in a box somewhere that I'll find years from now when I'm digging through my old clothes for my kids' 90's day at school and exclaim, "Oh my gosh! I was so..."

...fill in the blank.

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28/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Shelbye is the sweetest ever and brought me an awesome Valentine this morning at church. That Twix was seriously the best thing to hit my mouth when the sermon munchies hit.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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27/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.