I love peanut butter. I’m a Whitlock after all, and one thing you’ll pick up on quickly when you spend time with Whitlocks is that we love peanut butter. (Olives too. And cheeses of all varieties.) I enjoy all peanut butters from the heavily processed and smooth jar of JIF to the all natural, oil-separating Adam’s.

Recently, however, I’ve become more and more interested in various other nut butters (yes, peanuts are not actually nuts, but stay with me). I was at the grocery store with Wong last week and ended up in the natural foods section where before my eyes I beheld jars of almond and cashew butters.

I knew such things existed but had never before sought them out. They turned out to be quite expensive. About 8 bucks for a small jar. Too rich for my wallet, so I returned home a sad and lonely man (in terms of nut butter varieties).

Then the oddest thing popped into my head. I was sitting on my futon looking at my shelves of food-stuffs when I noticed the container of high grade mixed nuts from Costco and my mortar and pestle.

Years ago I was in a self-rewarding mood at the same time I was in an Asian marketplace (which no longer exists) and ended up purchasing a fairly nice and fairly cheap granite mortar and pestle. I’ve used it here and there but had never fully taken advantage of its potential.

As I sat on the futon the gears began turning and the light turned on. Silently (though it just as easily could have been out loud) I proclaimed “I can crush nuts in that mortar until they turn into butter!”

Without further thinking I grabbed the items, sat back on the futon, poured a handful of nuts into the mortar, and started smashing them with the pestle. It was so easy I couldn’t believe it had never occurred to me before. Not only was it easy, though, it was delicious.

After tasting it I wanted to yell “I have made mixed-nut butter!” ala Tom Hanks in Cast Away. “Mixed-nut butter” doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as fire, nor is it as dramatic of a discovery in regards to humanity as a whole. However, it was quite the accomplishment.

No longer will I be purchasing prepackaged peanut butter. Instead, I will purchase nuts and force them to submit to my mighty forearms! Then I will consume them on sandwiches or whatever else I fancy. The possibilities are endless! I plan to make mixed nut butter cookies soon.

This change in my life has made me a new man. I see the world differently. I see it covered in a delicious blanket of nut butters as far as the eye can see.

And it is beautiful.

For almost the past month, hardly anyone posted anything on the blogs that I regularly enjoy reading. In the past couple of days that has since been remedied by a couple of the blog owners. It was just a little downer when I would check to see if anything new was up and nothing was. Little Neal would climb into bed, pull up the covers, and shed a tear. Poor little Neal…

I want to catch you up on the stuff that’s been going on with me. If any of you were unaware, I have transferred to Utah State. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this in a post and I don’t care to check. I changed majors a couple times while at BYU and the major I decided I wanted to get my hands on has a better program at USU.

It’s fairly odd adjusting to the little differences between the two campuses, though. I love all the large trees up here. Both on campus and throughout the Logan. I’m not a tree climbing guy, but I’ve seen a few which made me want to become one.

Another difference I like is that the student body feels a little older. Explanation: I don’t mean older in years, but there were times at BYU when it felt like high school. Not all the time. But sometimes. That got to me. Along with that, there’s a bell in most of the buildings to indicate when class starts and ends, just like high school. That sort of threw me for a loop when I’d be reading somewhere, a bell would sound, the halls would fill with people, a bell would ring again, and the halls would be empty once more. I would think to myself “Aren’t we supposed to be adults responsible for being somewhere by a certain time? Do people really need a bell to indicate class has begun instead of a professor beginning to talk?”

Those things aside, there are differences which I miss about the BYU. Parts of the honor code. Not the whole thing, mind you, just bits here and there. When I get lost in the beauty of the trees I catch the distinct scent of something that snaps me right back to reality with a frown. I really don’t like cigarette smoke. I know people that don’t smoke and say they like the smell. Really? I want to smack those people when they then tell me it’s because they think cigarette smoke smells like a campfire. Again, really? What campfires do you make? They smell nothing alike.

I also miss religion classes. Sure, I’m taking an institute class, but it’s not the same. I’m not being graded on anything so I sometimes phase out of the discussion without a real urge to come back to it since I don’t need to remember anything for an exam. I haven’t taken any tests this semester yet, but when I do I can promise I will miss the BYU testing center. Being able to go in and take a test anytime was terrific.

This post is beginning to get a little long. I’ll stop now.

So.. uhhh… bye.