thoughts of Abigail

Some of the things running through my mind the past couple of days that I wanted to share.

1) Usually, in my life I try to figure out why people do the things that they do. I spend so much of my time and energy analyzing every detail, every action trying to decode motives, meanings, etc. This is a complete waste of time and energy. How I should be reacting is the most positive and Christlike way possible. I should give everyone the benefit of the doubt and just accept their actions and love them anyway. This applies to every situation. Situations when my roommates leave the garbage sitting by the door. When someone full-on lies and is a jerk. I need to just give everyone the benefit of the doubt in every situation.

2) I should try to make the best choices as possible. Every situation as the Savior would. :) simple, yes, but still I struggle. :)

3) Ell, this part is for you :) I have about 25 Moms. As I sit in my church today, I realized that I had more than one Mom. And most of them are in my ward. Melia Fidel, Caroline Smith, Kathy Goddard, Brenda Sanford, Elizabeth Larsen, Lucinda Milne, Mama Henry, Anne Hunter, Debbie Calton, Gloria Irion, Jen Terry, Trina freaking Gradinetti, Lanae Lewis, Heidi Barnett, and Jill Anderson. I think that is about everyone :) I love all my Moms so dearly. An individual is made a Mom because they: influenced me by example, have fed me so many meals and gave me big hugs when they woke up and found me on their couch, let me play at their house all the time with their six year old daughters. Someone who has sculpted me into the person I am today, either spiritually, physically, mentally, or emotionally.

Love Blogging :)

I had the best day with you today...err yesterday?

Yesterday, Gracie came to visit me for the day - Heidi was in town for work. It was so fun, that today has been ultra boring and lifeless.

Baking pink cupcakes was the first thing on our list of things to do. (pinkalicious planted the idea). The internet does wonders when it comes to instant homemade pink cupcake recipes. "Look Abbey It's red!" Gasp. Red food coloring is Mia's new favorite toy! Hilarious. I stifled laughs and blankly explained that we never play with food coloring - it doesn't matter the weather or if we are happy or sad. I will always be able to see her innocent little eyes looking up at me with the I-know-I-did-something-wrong-but-I-don't-know-what-because-I-like-my-pink-hand expression. haha. Once my heart returned to my body, we danced to enchanted and aladdin music to keep our minds busy while the cupcakes baked. They tasted delicious- everything is better when it is the color pink.

Swan Princess.
"Abbey! She isn't a princess anymore!She's a duck!"
"Why is she a duck?"
"Because she wanted to go swimming."
Duh.

Hide n go seek ended my perfect day. My sister's boss said you are such a nice sister to babysit her. I was totally taken aback. Nice? As if it was inconvenient for me? Freak, if being nice is code for being given the opporunity to play with my adorable and squishy niece, I will definately be nice more often. I definately am the one being benefited when her and I get to play. Truly blessed. Love her.

I had the best day with you yesterday...

I am a chef. :)

Some of the wonderful things I am learning in my culinary arts class:

When you saute something, you are supposed to put in the ingredient in when the pan is already hot (yes it makes a difference).

Blanching is useful before you saute something. Blanch is to place the item into boiling water. Boil for a few minutes and remove and cool instantly. (it just partially cooks it--who knew?)

That you can poach more than eggs :)

16 T is 1 cup. 3 t is 1 T. Therefore, 48 t is a cup.

Fish stock does not take that long to make and is relatively easy (this is important because that is a goal I have in my life - to make fish stock. Weird I realize. Fish bones have a lot of calcium!)

There is a difference between relishes and chutney. relish = pickled ingredients. chutney= contains some sort of acid.

That honing you knife makes it last longer (Ellen got to see me a creeper and hone my knife. It was pretty cool).

Mise en place is french for "to put everything in its place." (in other words, have every dish for dinner ready and hot at the same time :)).

So this was a very exciting and informative post. Why I just posted about cooking? I have no idea. But I hope you enjoyed it. and now you will hone your knives and blanch your vegetables. hehe.

Goal for the day: Change someone's life today! Smile, wave, hug. Try to make another person happy instead of yourself!

Abbey Worry Maughan

Cheesy. yes. Abbey Maughan is cheesy. And cheesy is abbey maughan.

Laughs. Fog. Basketball (whaat). Kiwis. Madre. Preach My Gospel. Sleep. Yoga. Nieces. Cell Phone. Washers and Dryers. Cars. Ice Cream. Music. Forgiveness. The Atonement.

Those are just a few of the things I have been grateful for today. I will try to post things to similiar to this a couple times a week. :)

College Life: Likes and Dislikes

Wow. This is post is so over-due. Well any post is over-due. Since the last time I posted was in July? Wow. (So Linds, I am finally posting for you). I thought I would do a likes and dislikes of college post. Since I think the likes and dislikes of growing up are made very clear.

Likes:
-Experimenting with cooking and eating it even when it doesn't work out
-Meeting the most awkward people ever in my life
-Taking naps everyday
-Attending Silent Sacrament Meetings
-Going Home to see the family
-Getting suprise visits from best friends
-Driving over two hours to see best friends
-Having so much free time that my roommates and I start trying on each other jeans and realizing we fit into them...weird
-Feeling Intelligent and productive after spending hours at the library
-Having late night talks with Brooke
-Laughing about nothing important for hours with the roommates
-Discovering who I am when I am thrown into unexpected situations
-Playing pranks on boys in our buildings
-Moving all of our mattresses in our living room for a big slumber
-Hearing the peace and quiet on Saturday mornings


Dislikes:
-Fighting with the roommates
-Being homesick everyday
-Missing your best friends who are at different colleges or in different states
-Studying so hard for a test and not doing well
-Never getting enough sleep
-Feeling tested and tried in every aspect of my life
-Discovering who I am when I am thrown into unexpected situations
-Being suprised with an unexpected cry face for no reason
-Having no "escapse" because someone is always where you are
-Spending all day everyday with the same people
-listening to Buble's song called Home
-Watching videos or looking at pictures of best friends and realizing why they are your best friends
-Writing letters to missionary friends who I probably won't be able to just "hang out" with ever again
-Spending all day everyday working towards nothing that is permanent
- Not being with my mom when I get sick
-Finding myself sad for no apparant reason
-Having to cook in order to survive- even when I don't feel like it


That is all of the likes and dislikes I can think of right now. I will probably add some more later on. Man, I miss blogging.

Man, I struggle.

Two weeks since I last blogged. Geez. Trying to remember what we did was a joke. Since I took so long, its not going to be elaborate stories, just simply a description of what we did.
Sunday July 6th - church.
Monday July 7th - Shopped at TJ Maxx and looked for Salad Works (Never found it).
Tuesday July 8th Happy Birthday to me! Got five hours of sleep since I was up til three and woke up at eight. geez. Went to Sa Sa for lunch(chinese and japanese). I ate sweet and sour chicken - made me really sick since I hadn't something that artificial forever. Went shopping at the Kind of
Prussia Mall. HUGE! love that mall. For dinner we ate a jack apple salad for dinner. YUM! my favorite. Since I love movies, we watched vantage point. SUCH A GOOD SHOW. Highly recommend it. Went to Friendly's for an intermission -ordered a chocolate goodness. Came back and watched fool's gold.
Wednesday July 9th Went to the hot tub. It burned us. But we sat in it anyway.
Thursday July 10th Drove to the Franklin Mint - apparantly something happened to it, because it was completely deserted. hilarious. Realized what we were looking for was actually at the Franklin Institute. It was awesome. A museum in honor of Benjamin Franklin. currently holding the only authenticated pirate ship ever. It also was awesome.
Friday July 11th Went to the Phillies game. Twelve Innings long. Thought I was going to die. I can handle about seven. But there were fireworks after and we missed them on the 4th. And I watched this girl in front of me who did not smile the entire game. I am going to make an effort to smile more than I stare or frown. :)
Saturday July 12th Went to New York. Saw Mary Poppins. Changed my life. Truly moving and unforgettable. Shopped at Canal Street. Saw all of the smuggled knock off purses. Definately worth the entire trip. and ate yummy pizza at a place I do not remember the name of.
Sunday July 13th church. watched premonition and 27 dresses
Monday July 14th Ate a ritas and went craft shopping
Tuesday July 15th made crafts for camp, watch the perfect man, traded the car,and ate at applebee's
Wednesday July 16th Did Camp activities with the girls.
Thursday July 17th Watched Batman Begins, and had an extrememly nice dinner for free at the General Warren Inn. My meal alone was over a hundred dollars. I felt kind of out of place, but still loved every minute of it.
Friday July 18th Saw Batman: The Dark Night - LOVED IT! and Drove to Palmyra and watched head over heels, if you haven't seen it I demand that you do :) it is so so good. went to dinner at Champps - yumm.
Saturday July 19th Saw the church Sites and Hill Cumorah Pagaent. wow. mom. wom. mow. Ask me about it if you want to know more.
Sunday July 20th Drove home from Palmyra. la la la.

Saturday July 5th

The only things that are noteworthy of friday:
-Going to QVC and buying kitchen utensils for college :) they are orange. And they were cheap.
-Playing swinging games with my parents. My Mom was an olympic swinger. She did crazy games! Running, jumping, twisting with other swingers. We all walked away with bruises. More importantly we laughed about it. The bruises didn't hurt so bad anyway.
-The park where the swings were located. Wow. Mom. Wom. Mow. It was a true testimony of our Heavenly Father. I am frustrated as no picture could capture what I saw and now words can explain the enrapturing trees. I'm sure I will attend this park again while I'm out here. Hopefull by the end of the trip I will be able to describe it.

My mom keeps talking to people from home who just keep asking, what are you and abbey doing out there? We thought you'd be home by now. How do you keep yourselves busy throughout the days? Hahahaha. Apparantly they don't know madre and I very well. It is hilarious to us. Seeing as we haven't experienced boredem once we've been out here. Bored? Definition? Anyone? Hilarious.