The Recipe for an Extraordinary Life : New Name

So. I'll admit it. I'm a pro stalker when it comes to the internet. Be it facebook, pinterest, or instagram. I end up on people's pages that I know nothing about. But boy do they have cute stuff! My new found obsession? Blogs. I haven't quite figured out how to stalk blogs, but reading friend's blogs has begun to take up some of my time. And it didn't take too many blog readings for me to realize that my title was hanging way too far off the lame cliff.

Since being married, and because I didn't cook much before being married, I've been trying new recipes almost every night. Some turn out great, some don't. All have been from pinterest. But as I've been trying these out, I've begun to see what really goes into meals. And I've reflected back on some of the failures at recipes, like the time my best friend in elementary school and I accidentally doubled the flour recipe in cookies. Too much of that stuff and your cookies cook like rocks. Or the time my roommate forgot to put the egg in her brownies... I've come to realize just how much one single ingredient means and what can happen if you use too much.

Taking this, and the need for a new blog title, it came to me. Recipes are like life.

To  explain, I'm going to use a recipe for some of my favorite pieces of heaven : Mint Chocolate Brownies.
This recipe is just one I found off the internet, but my favorite happen to be my old roommate Tiffany's. But.. I don't have the recipe. Tiffer Beans, if you're reading this, will you send it to me? Pretty please with mint brownies on top?  And just as there are multiple recipes for Mint Chocolate Brownies, there are many different recipes for life, billions actually. We all have our own. The following is just mine.


Mint Chocolate Brownies

Brownies: comparable to normal life. Life without the heaven. Still good. But not AMAZING like mint chocolate ones, ya know?

4 squares unsweetened baking chocolate: The baking chocolate here is what makes the brownies brown. It defines the brownies. This is like what defines you. Your past experiences, likes, dislikes, it's you. Whatever you is.
1 cup butter: seeing as it's like grease, this is like work. And for me, it's like school. It's the hard work we put into our lives.
4 eggs: eggs are my least favorite part about baking. I hate cracking the shell and trying to not get any inside the bowl and throwing it away and the stuff that gets on your hands. In this case, eggs are like my trials. And we experience a lot of them. And they're necessary. And inevitable. But in the end, all worth it.
2 cups sugar: this is the good days in life. Those days that just make you realize how good and how sweet life really is.
1 tsp vanilla: This is the little things you get excited for. Like the Taylor Swift cd coming out or a Pretty Little Liars episode or Your Love Is My Drug coming on the radio. It's the good things. The little ones.
1 1/4 cup flour: I hate flour. It's hard to pack, it's hard to keep off the counter, if you stir it too fast it gets everywhere. I hate it. I also hate dishes and laundry. But they're necessary for life to progress just as flour is for a batter to make anything. Necessary. Evils.
1/2 tsp baking powder: This is the bad days in life. You have just enough to experience the good days, but just like with baking powder, too many can really ruin your mood.

Frosting: to me, it's very much comparable to love. It's the icing on the cake, what makes everything about life (or our brownies) so sweet and enjoyable. Without it we have just brownies, or just life. You do the same thing day in and day out and there's not a whole lot of meaning. But when you have that person, that person who makes you you, that person that you share your life with, all the ups and downs, life is suddenly  happier and richer and our brownies have a heavenly taste.

2 cups powdered sugar: I love powdered sugar. Especially on french toast. I get giddy about it and I sprinkle everything in it. Lots of it. This is like the joy and the laughter in life. The more you have, the better. And you love it.
4 tbsp butter, softened: Just as with the brownies, this butter means work. But even though the pay off in the first one is great, the pay offs here are even greater. And working on your marriage or relationship is softer, it doesn't take as much elbow grease (hence the softened.) It's gentle and loving, but still work. It's not easy stuff, but produces great results.
1 1/2 tsp mint extract: this is what makes it taste good. Love makes life taste good. Life is better with a whole lot of love.
1-2 tbsp milk: a big thing I've learned with recipes is that milk helps to combine everything. If things aren't mixing well, milk fixes that (if your recipe calls for it that is.) In our relationship, quality time is the milk. Being apart for most of our dating and engagement, we realized just how important being together is. It pulls all of the wonderfulness of love together. It pulls you two together. It's no longer Me and You, love makes a We. We love quality time together.
green food coloring: This is what helps you to know the mint part is there. If it wasn't green, you might not pick it up (if you're like me) because it would look like just another plain ol' brownie. This is like affection. It helps you to know that love is there. That your person feels it too. You don't even have to say "Hey, this is a mint brownie", you see it and you know. With affection, you feel it and you know.

Chocolate Glaze: I hope to not offend anybody, but in our lives, The Gospel Of Jesus Christ and the LDS church are our chocolate glaze. Brownies with the mint frosting would be wonderful alone, but there's something that that little chocolate glaze does for the taste buds. There's something that the gospel does for our lives that is so sweet and so wonderful. You notice when it's not there, so we don't skimp on the chocolate glaze part.

6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips: In our lives, these are prayer and tender mercies. As long as you have a few chocolate chips, you'll get a sweet chocolate taste. As long as you pray a little, you'll see some tender mercies. But as with chocolate chips and the function of the more you put in, the sweeter it gets... it's the same with prayers. The more you say, the sweeter and more tender mercies come your way. Like I said, we notice when it's not there, we don't skimp on the chocolate part.
6 tbsp butter: again, this one means work. You could have the chocolate chips only on top, but melted and then hardened chocolate tends to be a little crunchy. Crunchy does not = glaze. The work here is scripture study, attending meetings, watching conference, etc. With these, something softer and sweeter comes, just like butter helps the chocolate not to be so crunchy. The chocolate and the butter together create a perfect blend to top off our lives.

Here's the rest of the recipe:
Mint Brownie Recipe

I want our blog to reflect all these aspects of our lives and to document everything our lives are. Welcome to the recipe of our lives!