Justin and I came home the other night to the raunchy smell of sour garbage. Isn't it funny how garbage has roughly a 5-minute window of when it doesn't stink to when it smells up the whole house and permeates into the floorboards and sheetrock? (Ok, it's not THAT bad but Febreze air freshener won't even cover it when it hits that point).

It's like, "Hey, I know I'm garbage, but I'm fine. Don't worry about me. Just go to work, and pay attention to me later."

5 minutes go by.

"I AM THE EVIL STENCH MONSTER! YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN AT WORK WHEN I APPEARED, NOTHING CAN STOP ME NOW! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!"

And you spend the next 30 minutes cleaning and airing out the house to get rid of it.

Well, I've seen this thing on Pinterest where you boil sliced oranges or orange peels with cinnamon and water. It's supposed to smell like a dream came true at your house. So I tried it and...

...it works! No Pinterest Fail here, internet peeps! My house smelled like the holidays, heaven and magic all wrapped into one! And it didn't burn my nose or give me a headache like scented candles do! I loved it so much that I had my trusty friend, Google, help me find these simple recipes for more house scents on Apartmenttherapy.com, which is also one of my very favorite get-lost-for-hours-at-a-time sites.

Pasted below, directly from the article, are the ones I want to try. Check it out, and let me know how it works for you!

And because your house will smell like the holiday season, it will make you get in the holiday spirit... and you'll eventually do this. BEFORE THANKSGIVING. Trust me, it smelled THAT good.

I had a great weekend. Did you? I hope so.

Let me tell you my why my weekend was good.

First off, I got to leave work Friday at 12pm. That's always a great way to start the weekend! Second of all, I got to go on a mini road trip with my mama! We drove down to Southern Utah to spend time at home. She has her treatments Monday through Friday 4 hours from her home, so it's great that she feels awesome enough to go home for the weekend. The weather was a little rainy but the sun came out and the temperature got up to 65 degrees! We also chatted for the whole drive down there. It was so nice to have it just be us two in the car, talking about anything and everything. I loved every minute of it.

I also love when the sun comes out and warms everything up in the spring. I get the winter blues whether I want them or not, so the sun invigorates me when it's been hiding for months. Saturday I sat out on the deck soaking in the Vitamin D while my mom made her regular April rounds through her thawing garden. She pruned the peach tree so it would be able to give us awesome peaches like it does every year. The poor thing gets so many huge peaches, the branches get too heavy and almost break. She also pruned her raspberry bushes, and cleared up some of the random debris that winter storms leave behind. It hardly felt like anything huge has happened in our lives. She doesn't even seem like "the awful news" ever even happened. I'm grateful for days like that, and for her amazing health right now.

My german sis and I soaking up Vitamin D on the deck.

Also this weekend was the LDS General Conference. For those not a part of the LDS religion (the Mormons) this conference happens every 6 months and can be seen via satellite broadcasts at meetinghouses, tv, or in person at the conference center in Salt Lake City. We watched it on tv from my parents' house. Sometimes it feels as if the whole 2 days worth of spiritual guidance is specifically geared toward me. I am a spiritual person. I pray to God multiple times a day for whatever I might need that requires a little help. Sometimes they are purely just prayers of gratitude, sometimes they are the pleadings of a heavy heart. This weekend, it was a little of both.

It was so nice to spend the weekend being uplifted by amazing talks on faith, perseverance, and life lessons. Practicing faith right now seems to be the topic of my life with what's going on in my family. I was so happy to be in my childhood home with my younger teenage brothers, my German sister, and my parents.

And then my mom baked 2 kinds of cookies. Aaaahhh the good life!

Also, apparently this little gem happened during the conference... 2 old gospel nerds fist bumping. Awesome.

Photo credit: Google Images had so many versions of this in their image search, so I just linked to one.

I have no idea what spawned a really funny dream I had the other night. Here's the story:

I was riding in a fancy train car through some country I've never been in. Everyone in the car was having a blast, but no matter how much I tried to join their groups they wouldn't let me in. I tried befriending them, but nope! I started to feel dejected and frustrated. That night in the train car, a group was watching a movie and I wanted to watch too. They said, "Ain't no skinnies be watchin' with us!" This was because all of them were large, curvaceous women. In my defense I tried to teach them how to be respectful to people of all sizes, and let them know that just because they'd been mistreated all their lives for being overweight, that rejecting me because of my appearance was just repeating the problem behavior! 

It didn't work.

They laughed me out of the room, and I decided to just go hang out by myself. I started eating a bunch of fried chicken that was sitting on the table nearby to feed my woes, and I could hear them all muttering, "Who does she think she is, like we'll feel bad for her, she may not have friends, but her thighs will never be huge! She doesn't even know us at all!" 

And then I woke up.  Probably one of the weirdest dreams I've ever had. If not the weirdest, it's at least  up there next to the frog detective that keeps chasing me, or the one involving care bears letting me float with them in a hot air balloon. All that one consists of is pure peaceful floating with some fuzzy, loving bear friends. I guess I've always had an overactive brain in my sleep. Must be why I'm always sleepy!

So, that dream got me thinking all about food all day long. That night I came home and made a huge batch of my new favorite food -- chicken and black bean burritos. I make a large batch of them and throw them in the freezer. Then whenever I'm hungry, or Justin is hungry, we just pop one in the microwave for 2 minutes! They are SO MUCH better than any store bought burrito I've ever had.



Here's my recipe:

LANA'S AMAZING BURRITOS

• Boiled and shredded boneless chicken
• Black beans
• Diced canned chiles
• Shredded cheese
• Tortillas

Just boil the chicken and shred it with beaters (it will save you tons of time!) Then open the cans of chiles and black beans, and stir them all together with the chicken in a huge bowl. Then pile a blob of the mix into a tortilla, add some cheese, and wrap it up! I wrap my burritos in foil for the freezer, but I'm trying to find a less wasteful method, so if anyone knows one, send it my way!

Y'all should try it and tell me what you think! Or come up with another recipe (this was all my own from what I know I like) and send it to me. I love food, so help a blonde out ok?