Hall's Kitchen

Calling all Halls! Especially those who cook! I am ALWAYS calling members of this family for recipes! I mean all the time... and let's be honest we come from a long line of folks who not only are amazing cooks but LOVE to eat!

So... I have set up a blog for sharing recipes here.  You are for sure going to want to follow this blog and for those Hall and Hall descendants who would like to contribute just leave me a comment here and I will send you a contributor invite and more information. Let's start posting awesome recipes!

Breaking up is hard to do... but not this time!!!!

I recently ended a 5 year realationship. This is Sanchez:

Well it is a picture I found on google images that looks exactly the same. Except for a few things. This car does not have dimples. Which Sanchez recived during her first tornado. Or the ensuing rust spots that followed. This car has it's original hub caps. I had to buy Sanchez new ones when i ran into the atm machine in Nebraska and they came rolling off and I didn't want to chase them through the mall parking lot with the bank ladies watching me so I just drove away. The new ones were chrome colored and looked really really bad on my old ghetto car so my roommates and myself rubbed mud all over them.

Oh Sanchez, I was so happy to have found you. You ran well and never gave me even one heart ache. Ther is some debate to how you received your name. I know that it had something to do with a late night run to Beto's, pickles, and lemonade, maybe Pidge will remember. We had TONS of good times together. So many crazy fun road trips. But that last week or so I just started to feel like we were over. It was time for me to move on. And you were getting sick. It was time to put you out of your misery. RIP Sanchez.

Here is the new purchase:

Okay this one is also from Google images because i don't want to get up and go outside and take a picture of my new acquisition. The only difference really is that my car has tinted windows and a HUGE Husker sticker in the window. She is cactus green and I am in love. But she needs a name. Ideas?

Safety

I use to leave Zac a love note a day... in his car, his office, his locker... wherever. When I no longer lived close enough to do that for him I made him the best Christmas present ever. I made him a book with a page for each month of the year and each one had a pocket with 4 love notes in it. So he had a love note a week for a year. On the opposite page I put something unique to us like the hospital bracelet from when he forced me to go to the hospital. Or a page that said love means never asking you to play candy land (long story). On one page I put this poem by George Elliot:

Oh the comfort of feeling safe
with a person;
having neither to weigh thoughts,
nor measure words,
but to pour them all out
just as chaff and grain together,
knowing that a faithful hand
will take and sift them,
keeping what is worth keeping
and with a breath of kindness,
blow the rest away.

I found this poem in my grandma's things along time ago. It was the copy I have in her hand writing that I placed in the book. Because, Zac, this is how I feel about you. I can say ANYTHING I am feeling and you take it and sift it and are left with only the best part of me. Which is the part you deserve. 

The thing I love the absolute best about men is that I feel safe with them. So if I were to make a list of the things that make a friend a BEST friend the first quality listed would not be that they make me laugh. It would be that I trust them with my heart. Thanks for putting up with crazy Reese this week. I love you 18, forever, 5 a lot, and all the days! 

He loves me, He really loves me!

My brother Logan is adorable let me just start with that. When he was learning to pray, my parents told him to just tell Heavenly Father everything he was thankful for. His prayers went something like this " Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for peaches, and apples, and grapes... and strawberries, and blueberries, etc etc etc. Cute boy huh?

Today I couldn't help think of the little guy during our Relief Society lesson on the creation. They discussed how much nature shows our Father in Heaven love for us. Which is great, and I love being outside in the world Heavenly Father made for me. I recognize that every beautiful thing is a little love note from him. However the lesson manual had a few gems in it that really touched me that we never touched upon in class. (good reason to read the lessons, they are short you can do it)

It talked about how His creations are not only to please the eye but to gladden the heart and then right afterward talks about food and talks about he created things not only for us to see, but to taste and smell. Thank you Heavenly Father for making peaches for me. And thank you for making the strawberries I had on my pancakes last night. I really enjoyed them with almond whipped cream, ask anyone in the room, it gladdened my heart.

My favorite part of the lesson was when it lists things He has created to show His love for us. The sun, the rain, a bird singing, a friend laughing, our bodies. Hmm... wait a second... I had never thought of a friends laugh as one of His creations. Heavenly Father, the power of a majestic sunset certainly warms my soul and testifies to me of your love. But a friends laughter is such a precious thing to me, and it occurs much more frequently in my life than does my observation of waterfalls, or a sunset over the ocean. Thanks for giving us the ability to laugh. You didn't have to. You didn't need to take the time to give us laughter, or blueberries.

So tonight my prayer is something like this "Heavenly Father, Thank you for Peaches... and Kate's laugh, and Lolly's laugh, for Krista's Laugh, and Emily's... For Zacula's laugh even though it is at my expense, and Snub's laugh, and Wade O's laugh, and Drew's, I love that Kyle laughs with his eyes... I love that both of my littlest siblings laugh with their noses scrunched up, I love my papa's laugh that I would recognize anywhere, and for my mom's laugh that I still echos in my heart. And finally, thank you for this little gem in the lesson today. I love you too." 

AHHHHH!!!... and my secret snack.

So I need to do some venting and have a MILLION things to blog about. However, this is not the appropriate venue as most of the things I want to vent about read this very blog. In addition to that who wants to keep reading all my downer posts? Not me! So here is a funny-gross story for your reading pleasure:

But you can only read it if you promise no matter what you read in the following paragraph that you will not judge me. Oh and remember that I shower!

Today I was eating chips in my car. (P.S. Bad idea in your brand new car) I got out of my car to walk into the UDOT building and felt something scratchy in my shirt. So I look down and realize I have a whole chip in there! So I think score another chip and I eat it. Don't judge me. It was MY chip on MY freshly showered skin. Anyway it was right when I realized I had yelled score out loud that I turn and become painfully aware that I had an audience in a truck parked outside the buidling. Oppsie! Sorry guys.

Who likes war?

I have a crush named Willie. He follows this blog (Hello Willie). I wanted to go to Logan last night to visit him and couldn't get out of the plans I already had in SLC.

Willie: So..... I come 75% of the way and you run in the other direction?

Me: If I could have gotten out of my plans I would have been up there in a flash

[I went on to tell him some of the details of things that are troubling me.]
Me: But all is fair in love and war right?
Willie: Supposedly, but who likes war?

You are correct Willie. No one likes war. But I will go to war for four things:
1.If anyone makes fun of, hurts, or is unkind to something I love. (Basically: family, the gospel, and BFFs)
2. Being talked to like I am three. I am a big girl. Don't talk to me like I am dumb.

3. If you lie to me. ANY form of dishonesty. So yeah lying right to my face counts, obviously, but things such as hiding things from me count as well. Even if you think you are protecting me. NEVER lie to me. I am tough I can take it, what I can't take is, I'll say it again, dishonesty.
4. Being shushed. Oh my goodness, I am getting mad just thinking about it!

So there you have it. No one likes war, but sometimes you have to go to war in order to have peace.

Thanks Jake!

I had a long talk with my brother Jake recently. He was so cute and concerned about me and I was so grateful for his call. There is nothing better than a boy who loves you and is protective of you. My heart was so happy and when I went to say goodnight to him I said "Jake, I am so thankful that I am sealed to you forever!" The amazingly sensitive man that he is replies, "Reese, I picked you to be my sister in the pre-existence..." Sweet right? Wait til you hear the end. "Because I knew you'd be a screw up and need my help!"

Screw up or not, I am grateful that my sweet brother was there to cheer me up. I could tell that he was genuinely concerned about me and that he genuinely cared. Jake, I am serious when I tell you that I am glad I am stuck with you for eternity.

What's the Worst That Could Happen?

I was so stressed out last week. There were so many little things going on that from the outside looking in may have seemed trivial. In fact from the inside looking in they seemed trivial, and part of why I was so stressed was that I couldn't figure out why I was so stressed about nothing.

So I am sitting in my car, stressing obviously, and I reach for my phone and start scrolling through it for my mom's cell phone number. I'll just give her a call and she'll make it all better I thought. It was only a few seconds later when I realized I couldn't call her that I broke down. I have days all the time when I need her and want to talk to her but it crushed me that after 5 years for some reason that was still my very first reaction. Like I could pick up the phone, no problem, and get to chat with her until everything was better.

So later in the day I was still shaken and very sad so I sent out a text to a few friends. I didn't tell them the particulars but I believe I said I was stressed, and wanted to cry. I am so grateful for one young man who called within a few minutes. He found out I hadn't eaten all day and made sure I fixed that. He listened why I told him all the little insignificant things that had gone wrong, and when I told him about mom and I cried, he just let me cry. Then he made me laugh. My spirits were instantly lifted.

However it wasn't until later that evening when I was home laying on the couch and wondering why it felt like I was having a stroke that I remembered something my dad told me recently. "The worst that your life can ever get is that you need to come home." Wait? That's the worst? That doesn't seem too bad. The very worst thing that could happen to me is that I would have to go home. Now don't worry dad I'm not considering it, but it really snapped everything back into perspective for me. I have such a good life and have been so blessed. I often watch the homeless man leave the dumpster behind our office building in the morning and think to myself why don't these people just go home?

I may not have my mommy here with me. And for the rest of my life I may have days like this where I desperately need to give her a call. But I still have an amazing daddy who loves me. I have the greatest family a girl could ask for, and I have amazing friends. Zacula, you dropped everything to listen to my stupid, insignificant, trivial problems and I love you for it. But more than all of this combined I love my Heavenly Father for blessing me with ALL of the amazing people who surround me, for giving me a safe place I can call home. If the very worst that can happen to me is that I have to go home to a family that loves me and cares about me then what do I ever really have to worry about?