The new menu board

Pinterest...

Oh...pinterest...

So many things to do, make, eat that sometimes I get overwhelmed. I think "I don't have time for this! Do these people work? Or sleep? All they do is paint their nails and take pictures of their food!!"

Anyway, sometimes I find things on pinterest and I just can't stop thinking about how I need to make something like that.

Well that's exactly what happened when I saw this I knew I had to make it. Well I don't have any extra baking sheets to cut the edges off of, so I used an 8x10 picture frame that we had leftover from the wedding decorations.

Needless to say, mine is not exactly the same. It's not supposed to be. And only had a minor mishap where I evenly spaced 6 of the clothespins and then wondered why it looked weird....yeah I forgot the 7th - darn Saturday and Sunday both starting with S. :) Anyway, I googled how to unstick hot glue. Google told me rubbing alcohol, but nail polish remover was all I had at home so I gave it a try. It worked and then I went back and re-did my craftiness. But I like the finished product a lot. Now it's just time to put the foods on the little cards so I can actually use it!

But here's the (almost) finished product so you can see how my vision of her craft turned out. :)

Maybe once I figure out what my standard go-to meals are I'll include those too.

But I think 2 posts in one day is quite enough. :)

Catch Up -- Just Highlights...

Hello people!

Well I'm a Mrs. now... how fun!

Here's a quick catch-up of the last 4 months...

Wedding Highlights:
--It was HOT! June 14th is a HOT day in Arizona! But the wedding was amazing and beautiful.

--We found fresh flowers on sale because they were "old", which was awesome because we only needed them for a few hours and they still had plenty of beautiful left in them.

--The food was amazing--my husband's family made some DELICIOUS foods!

--Everything looked gorgeous and we had so much fun!

--WE ARE MARRIED NOW!!

Job Updates:
--I have a new job and I work with families educating them on nutrition. It's fun and I like it and feel like I can really be myself. My personality is definitely a plus.

House/Home News:
--We bought a little truck. It needs work, but Husband wants to do a lot of it himself...once it gets running that is. (Someone else is doing that part.)

--Our little apartment had tons of yucky cockroaches when we moved in and we spent an entire day cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Now we only find one cockroach a week or so and that is much improved. :)

--I cook! At least most of the time, I try to come home and cook something. I have had my share of failures, but I am getting the hang of this domestication... ;)

Ok--pics of the BIG DAY!

Final Countdown

Hello again.

It's Sunday night and so I am getting married in 4 days.

I am getting married in 4 days!

I also have a tonsil infection. I'm trying to rest and take care of my body, but it's so hard because there's a million things to do. Luckily my parents are coming soon and I'll be able to put them to work as my slaves I mean, have them help me before the wedding.

The important things are done: we have clothes, shoes, food, a marriage license, and our temple recommends. We even have a little place to live that we de-cucarached and cleaned last week so I think even if I don't make every little thing I've pinned to my "wedding" board or do a million cutesy things. Let's be honest, I probably wasn't going to do those things anyway. :)

Unless you want to come work as a slave help with cutesy. :)

Engaged :)

There's no real surprise here for most of you...but I'm engaged!! We're getting married in June and I couldn't be happier to be marrying my best friend.

To save you some time, I know what you really want and that is pictures. Not all of these photos made the announcements, and actually I didn't include the 2 that will be featured on the invitations to leave you with a little something to look forward to. Some of these are obviously posed, and others were just taken while we were being ourselves.

So, here you go! :)

Lists

You may not believe this, but I am a list maker. I (usually) make grocery lists, I have a ridiculously long to-do list, when major decisions come up I make a pro/con list, and I just generally like reading and making lists.

Flashback: 2 years ago when I was more regular about my blogging (can you believe I blogged only 10 times during 2012??) I made a bucket list of sorts around my birthday. (check out that post here) In the past 2 years I have done many things or similar things from that list, including but not limited to:

-learning to drive stick
-trying out for a solo in the community choir (close to auditioning for community theater)
-go someplace new
-run a half-marathon (in case you're curious, that's like 3 and a half 5ks...)
-climb a mountain (ok, so maybe Telegraph Pass isn't a mountain, but it's close!)
-watch a meteor shower
-do a good deed everyday
-Go to the temple as often as my schedule permits, which now that I live 3 hours from a temple is once a month
-start something! I have started (and finished) lots of things
-find a favorite restaurant--only if taco stands count... ;)

These have been great things that have helped me have a lot of fun over the past 2 years. There are some things from the list that I still need to do. There are some new things that I want to incorporate into my life. For 2012 I picked a word (love) that I made my resolution for the year and I think I am still working on it. I guess I am making (and sharing) actual resolutions for the new year, but I'm hoping that whatever list I make will be able to actually make it into my life and now just stay on the paper (or in this case, on the internet).

In no particular order:

-Learn to play guitar
-Learn to speak Spanish
-Run 2 half marathons and improve my time on the 2nd (January in Yuma and another one sometime later)
-Pay off all my debts and start living on less money than I make (maybe I'll save up for something amazing)
-Read from the scriptures for 15 minutes every day, preferably not right before my head hits the pillow (how many years will I make this resolution... :)
-Live organized: make food menus, live on a budget, clean my living spaces, etc

I think I see a pattern from all of these goals--my word for 2013 is LEARN. I plan to do a lot of learning this year and I think these specific goals will help me take control of some of my learning in different areas of my life.

I will keep you updated on what I learn this year. :)

Holidays and scary things!

Hello Holidays!

There are 7 more school days before Christmas break, but who's counting right? ;)

That means there are 7 more days for me to figure out how to incorporate the holiday spirit of giving into my life more.

For a while now, I've been thinking of a friend to whom I would like to gift a Book of Mormon. Now, I have gifted a Book of Mormon before and it's very frightening for me. You'd think after the time I spent as a missionary, it would get easier.

It doesn't.

It's always hard and always scary and I ALWAYS build it up in my head to be more than it is.

I have conversations in my head that start a lot like this:

What if they think I'm trying to convert them? (Well, I sort of am...so...)

What if they think I'm trying to tell them that I think they're going to hell or something? (Then I haven't been doing a very good job at being their friend have I?)

What if they throw it away/never read it? (Doesn't change the fact that I gave.)

What if they get all weird about it? (Maybe you're the one being weird!)

I never stop to think about the positive conversations that I could have:

What if they read it and have questions to ask me--will I be ready to answer? (Better read that book again yourself, eh?)

What if they want to come to church? (Not super unusual to have marrieds at our singles branch. )

What if they join the church? (Then you'll probably get to help out with the baptism!)

Most of the time these conversations in my head keep me from doing whatever scary thing it is that I have set my mind to.

Except in one case: I auditioned for a solo in our community choir's production of Handel's Messiah. And...drumroll please...will be singing one of the soprano solos "Rejoice Greatly" (here's a recording of one of my favorite sopranos singing this...not what I sound like obviously...)

We rehearsed with the orchestra yesterday. That was scary. A week from Saturday and Sunday I will sing this in front of a paying audience. Scary. But I'm doing it. :)

And I think for Christmas I will give my friend a copy of the Book of Mormon. Then I will disappear for a few days visiting family for the holidays. :)

I'll keep you posted.

Do you do scary things? How does that usually work out for you?

Birthday Crisis

Every year around my birthday I like to think about things in my life.

This year I had a bit of a "mid-life crisis". I had NO IDEA what to do for year 26.

NO IDEA.

I decided to look back to this post 2 years ago for my 24th birthday. There's some good stuff here that I want to do this year.

Like:
-Learn to play the guitar
-Try out for community theater

But lots of the other things I've already done...
-Ran a half-marathon
-Learned to drive stick
-Climbed a mountain
-Watched another meteor shower
-Went to lots of places where I'd never been


At a YSA fireside last week, our lesson was about setting and achieving goals. I am feeling strangely powerful and brave about my life currently. I don't want to be scared of the future, and I want to just go out and DO STUFF!!

So I am going to learn to play the guitar this year. I am going to be in  the Yuma Community Theater production of "My Fair Lady". I am going to run another half-marathon. I'm going to go on a wonderful vacation--maybe even by myself (!). I'm going to do simple things to, like read awesome books, do crossword puzzles, and make crafty things I find on pinterest. :)

And I'm going to continue my goal to love people more. That was my goal for 2012 and I think it should just be a life goal.

So I think I'm ready for my birthday. It's probably going to be great.

No, it IS going to be great!