Here's to Paying Jobs I Enjoy...

Two major things since my last blog.

The first is that I interviewed for a coaching job at North St. Paul High School (Morgan's school)...and I got it!! I am officially the new coach for their 9th grade team! I had a meeting with their Varsity coach yesterday. I couldn't be more excited. The program is so well organized, and I get to do so much! Besides coaching my own team (which is actually 2 teams of 8 girls. The 9th grade team is split into "A" and "B" teams.) I get to go to several camps this summer, and a 2 day, overnight coaching clinic in St. Cloud. I'm going to learn so much!!! The sad thing is that I am going to miss the camp that I really, really want to go to...because I'm going to be in Montana. The camp is for 6th-9th graders, which would give me a good idea of what my team is going to be like this year (since it will be all 9th graders.) But don't worry, family...no thoughts of backing out. I can't wait for June 13th!!!




Not going to lie, though...the whole thing is a bit intimidating. I'm the youngest coach by far...and the only female. But everyone that I have met so far has been great, and great at answering questions. The other intimidating factor is that I'm in charge of 15 or 16 girls...and I'm on my own a lot. The 9th grade team plays opposite the JV and Varsity teams. So if they have a home game, we have an away game. And I don't have an assistant. (Sheryl, I may need some help...) But I plan to spend the summer getting to know the NSP program, and studying the game as much as possible. I'm determined to be a bad-ass coach.

It's going to make for a crazy fall schedule, though. After my two matches (A and B team), I either bus back to the school, if we played away, or drive to the school where the varsity game is. I get to sit on their bench and take stats. I'm almost as excited for that as I am to coach my own team. I think I'll learn a ton.

Go Polar Bears!



The second thing just happened this morning. Nathan's sister Caroline called to offer us a job watching her two older boys 3 days a week. It's basically the same schedule as Mom has...Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I'm really excited for this, because we were looking for a nanny job we could do together. It's even better that it's with family, and we already know and love Jacob and Nicholas.

So it looks like that's our summer! It's going to be busy, and fun, and crazy! And I intend to accomplish several goals, such as weekly visits to the library to pick up intellect-expanding literature, learning French (we have the Rosetta Stone program...and I am dying to be bilingual), working out regularly, and eating healthy food. All in all, it should be a very productive few months!!!

Love to all!
Lissa Hoarn

I Hate Young Talent...but Really I'm Just Jealous.

Saw this link on someone's facebook wall the other day. And so I watched it. And watched it. And watched it.

Two questions come to mind.

1) Why does a 6th grader have so much talent?
2) How the heck did Justin Beiber get famous when there is talent like THIS in the world???

Copy/paste this into your browser, and enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxDlC7YV5is&sns=em

Love to all,
Lissa

The Ralph Roister Doisters

So near the end of every year, the NWC theatre department hosts a lovely part for those who have been involved in the several productions throughout the year. We car pool over to a lovely (and gigantic) boat on the Mississippi River, and they feed us oodles of good food. Then we have an awards show (The Ralphies...almost as prestigious as winning a Tony), sprinkled with several skits, puppet shows, and entertaining speeches. After all this, we go outside on the giant deck, and dance in ridiculous ways to ridiculous music. So. Much. Fun!

The dress code for this prestigious event is "Fractured Formal", which is basically formal wear, with a twist. The size and style of the twist is up to you. It was a fabulous (and very late) night, and unfortunately, we didn't charge the batteries on our camera, so pictures of the event itself are nonexistant from the Hoarn camp. We did, however, take pictures of our outfits. Which were fabulous.



My lovely outfit...the stockings don't show very well in this picture, but they were bright orange...and one leg had fishnets over it, the other didn't.




Nathan's outfit...yes, we coordinated.



My hair...Nathan actually did it. It took three bumpits and a LOT patience.





I'm madly in love with this veil...and I finally had an excuse to wear it!



And at the end of night, after removing three bumpits, five ribbons, and several packs of bobbypins, I could have passed for Aslan's twin sister.



Love to all!!
Lissa Hoarn

Life Update

I received a text message last night informing me that I needed to update my blog (thank you, Liana) so here I am. Sorry I've been so lackadaisical about it lately.

So I have just three weeks of school left! It feels like this year has absolutely flown by, but I'm ready for summer! I'm excited for my first summer as a married woman, and Nathan and I have lots of plans.

The thing I'm MOST looking forward to is our trip out to Montana in June to see the baby. Of course, at this rate, he might not be here in June. He may just stay in Sheryl forever. (Did you know the gestation period of an elephant is like 18 months? Not that that's relevant here.) Becky, Joel, Laney, Matt, Emily, Nathan and I are all piling into a vehicle and driving out to a cabin in the mountains. We plan to do some hiking (if I can keep my allergies under control) spend some time in Bozeman with Sheryl and Cody, and just chill with the family. I'm pretty excited...there are few people in this world I love as much as my siblings!

So this weekend Mom and I are going to South Dakota with our Junior Olympics volleyball team...this tournament wraps up our season, which is rather sad. The only thing I enjoy more than playing volleyball is being on stage. In a way, they are similar to me. I get the same rush of adreniline. I missed playing so much, and coaching filled in for that a bit. I am hoping to find a coaching position for a younger team in the fall, so hopefully I'll have that to look forward to.

Anyway, I'm going to go make another cup of green tea...with honey, of course. I've become an addict.

Love to all!!!

Lissa Hoarn

Fail

So tonight I decided to make a lovely dinner for my wonderful, wonderful husband. I was in the mood to try something new, so I found what looked like a great recipe for lemon poppy seed chicken. The recipe was really simple: not many ingredients, and basic instructions.

Apparently, it wasn't simple enough. Either that, or I suck. However, in this case, I choose, for my own self esteem, to blame the recipe. (Not that my self-esteem needs help.)

It was TERRIBLE. First I had a little problem with the butter. The recipe called for a half stick of butter, melted in a sauce pan, to brown the chicken with. Then I removed the chicken, as directed, to add the next ingredient. However, by the time the chicken was sufficiently browned, the butter was also brown, and in some spots, burned. So I kept the chicken, and dumped the butter, because it is supposed to be a part of the sauce. So I remelted butter til it looked like the picture (don't laugh) and then added the next ingredient: two tablespoons of flour.

Ok, so shouldn't a recipe tell you that the flour is going to chunk up into nasty little fried turdy looking things??? Out went that batch of butter and flour. The third time around I got it right. I applied the "cornstarch" method to flour (mixing it with a little cold water first) which I probably should have figured out the first time, but hey, give me credit.

So once that road bump was behind me, I followed the recipe to perfection! (I swear!) I finished the sauce, put the chicken back in the pan, and let it simmer for the proper amount of time. Then the fatal tasting. I almost spit it back out. It was bitter, and nasty, and did not taste at all like anything ANYONE would want to put on a nice dish of chicken and pasta. After several minutes of adding things to try to make it better (didn't work) I called on my husband to taste it.

He still claims that it wasn't that bad. He fiddled around with it for a while, then said that he would gladly have it for dinner, but I found a better place for it.



That's right...it all went down the sink. Luckily for us, Nathan can cook fantastically, and of course, in his effort to be unfailingly, annoyingly good at EVERYTHING, he never uses a recipe. After graciously telling me that it hadn't really been that bad, he made his own, much better, version of lemon poppy seed chicken.



















However, my cooking skills were not a complete failure. We used the same chicken, which, despite having sat in that awful concoction for a good part of an hour, had acquired a lovely, moist, light, lemony flavor. And of course, I made the most important part of the whole meal.



No one boils spaghetti like I do. No one.



Love to all,
Lissa

Hotel Nilius

Nathan and I puppy-sat for Becky and Joel this weekend while they were in Omaha visiting family. We had a great weekend with just us and Kodi, their fluffy white husky.

Friday night Mom, Lezlie, Nathan and I went to go see "The Wizard of Oz" at the Orpheum in Minneapolis. It wasn't a great show, but we had fun, and I got terrible blisters on the back of my heels from shoes I've worn a thousand times. It's a little strange, since they've never given me trouble before.

Saturday was an early morning, since mom and I had to be in Burnsville by 7:15 to coach volleyball. We picked up Starbucks on the way to keep us awake. Morgan and Kelly surprised us by coming to watch our team play, and Morgan stayed the whole day. It wasn't a great day for the team, but it was fun to see Morgan. I miss her lots these days.

Sunday night Nathan and I had a bonfire in the back yard. It was so fun just to snuggle up and talk for a couple of hours by the fire. After that we play Bananagrams and some card games. The best thing about this weekend is being able to play music or talk any time of the day without worrying about waking the neighbors.

We are going to head home in an hour or two here, because we have some things to do, but I don't really want to leave. We've both grown very attached to Kodi (I'm thinking of dog-napping him) and I like this house...particularly the fridge, which Becky stocked full of all sorts of delicious things for us.

Anyway, I'm going to go finish packing and fold some laundry. (we took advantage of the free washer and drier...we have to pay two dollars a load at our place) Love to you all!

Lissa Hoarn

Seasons and Such

I'm sitting in bed, wrapped up nice and cozy in my snuggie (Don't mock me until you've cuddled in one), with the window open to let this spring-like breeze we are having in. I certainly hope this weather lasts...today, I actually wanted to go outside. Do you know how often that happens? It might as well be never.

In spite of the lovely warmth, I don't like spring for several reasons. Soon the snow will melt, and the trees will decide that they feel compelled to poop pollen everywhere. If you've ever met me, you know that pollen might as well be arsenic to my immune system.


I can't breathe for entire months at a time. My eyes look like I'm a meth addict. I eventually resort to making strange noises in an attempt to scratch my throat. It is very disturbing.


And then, as if that weren't bad enough (subjunctive mood, anyone?), spring decides to turn into summer. And summer is my absolute least favorite time of the year. Now, if I lived in California, in a nice beach house, I would love summer. But in the lovely state we call Minnesota, summer only means mosquitoes, humidity, and loads of people swimming in lakes and chlorine infested pools, both of which I'm allergic to.

If I had my way, we'd skip spring in Minnesota all together. A month of summer, nine months of fall. Why fall? Because fall is perfect. Colorful, brisk, but not freezing, and allergy free. Add it to a Manhattan sky line and we've achieved heaven on earth.



Add enough winter to cover Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year. Ba-boom! We've achieved a perfect climate.

Love to you all!
Lissa Hoarn