projects!

geez, thanks friends! i had no idea all of you would be so excited to see my latest sewing projects. thanks for your encouragement! here's a sneak peek...

the ruffle necklace:



the up-cycled shirt -- decided to add a little more color than the tutorial; i like how it turned out:



newly covered pillows for the couch. we used to have four extra couch pillows but they mysteriously didn't make it through the move; we haven't seen them since pasadena. i bought two new ones at a yard sale a few weeks ago but wanted to re-cover them so they'd tie in my awesome turquoise mirror a little better...and here's the result. what do you think?





p.s. we are allllmost done decorating the new place, for now at least. i'll have pics of the apt up soon :)

first day of school!

poor, poor b.

i had such high hopes of giving him a special first day of school. i wanted to get up early and make him breakfast, but then i slept in and when i got out of the shower he'd already poured himself a bowl of cereal. then i was going to make him lunch but i forgot, and HE forgot, and he left for class with no food! luckily he had a long break today so he came home and ate lunch with me instead.

AND luckily i still managed to take a first-day-of-school picture...hey, it's not every day your 27-year-old husband starts school!



the student and the girl who is paying for his education:



tonight, to celebrate, we went out for frozen yogurt. there is a fro yo place here called yo zone that reminds me a LOT of squeeze & scoop...i mean, it's no pinkberry, but it's the do-it-yourself type of place we love annnd they have pretty good mochi. this was our second visit and i was real excited about it.



however, our outing to the fro yo joint was like a parade of insanity. just while driving we saw multiple herds of young adults walking down the street [i SO do not miss co-ed FHEs], 5,000 scooters [traffic has noticeably increased now that school has started back up], a blood red sunset [there are fires here too], and some crazy guy totally making out with an unidentified pastry item. we watched him lick this thing like a million times...i tried to take a picture but couldn't get a good shot because i was laughing so hard:


ohhh gotta love a small college town. here's to b and the next two years...he came home to study tonight and i went to yoga. i have a feeling i'll be hitting the gym on my own a lot during this MBA thing.

this week

this week i got not one but TWO migraine headaches. ughhhhhhhhhh.

this week my desk at work looked like this...working for a paper / scrapbook company is FUN!:



this week b finished up orientation and went to a marketing retreat in moab for three days. he rafted, hiked, stayed up late, played two-truths-and-a-lie [doesn't this sound like he went to a teenage girl's slumber party?], talked crap about byu football. just another regular week for him.

this week i thoroughly enjoyed my alone time. i recovered our couch pillows [didn't get brave enough for the piping, dana], made this and this, caught up on dvr.

this week some co workers invited me to go to lunch with them! so exciting. i've also made a few friends with the mba wives. yaaaay.

this week my sister visited me. this week i bought new shoes. this week I became a fugitive [turns out i maaaaybe have some unfinished expense reports out there from the old job....oy].

next week my mom & brother are coming to visit! we get to eat steak at the in laws! i will hopefully not get a migraine! happy weekend.

smore brownies

i whipped these babies up on sunday and they are deeeeelicious. i didn't think i'd love them as much as i do [come on, they're not cookies!] but i can't stop eating them. b has eaten two so far today. so here's the recipe :)

smore brownies

Crust:

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1 1/2 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• Pinch fine salt

Brownie: make from scratch OR, like me, use a mix from a box :)

Topping:

• 4 cups large marshmallows

Directions:

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and heat oven to 325 degrees F. Line an 8 by-8-inch square baking pan with foil so it hangs over the edges by about 1 inch.

For the crust: Lightly butter the foil with some of the melted butter. Stir the rest of the butter together with the crumbs, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Press the crumb mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare brownie mix either from scratch or by following regular directions on a box. When crust is done, pour brownie mix on top and cook as directed by recipe / box.

When done cooking, remove from the oven and carefully position a rack about 6 inches from the broiler and preheat on low. Layer marshmallows across the top and toast under the broiler until golden, (keep an eye on it, it can go quick), about 2 minutes [i left mine in more like 30 seconds and they were already turning brown -- i was too impatient to cool my oven down first :) ]. Cool on a rack, gently removing the brownies from the pan using the aluminum flaps. Carefully separate any marshmallow from the foil and fold away. Cut into 12 (2-inch) squares.

mmmmmmm. off to go eat another piece :) beware, they are VERY sticky and hard to cut, but sooo worth it.

the fugitive

two weeks ago we got mail from the county of los angeles, saying there was a warrant out for b's arrest.

COOL. i was so excited -- my husband was a fugitive and had fled state lines! of course, i was only excited because there was no real reason for concern.

a few weeks before we moved, b got a $250 ticket for riding the train without renewing his monthly pass. [this annoyed me, of course, because there was NO reason for him not to have done so -- our work paid for our transportation, so basically he was just being lazy in not filling out the paperwork.] we expected to get it in the mail but nothing ever showed up, thanks to the brilliant speed of los angeles bureaucracy no doubt. i secretly hoped we'd move and the ticket would be lost forever.

i forgot about it as we heard nothing else till the arrest warrant came in the mail. upon closer inspection, turns out the smarty-pants cop had a typo in our address -- so i assume the original ticket really did get lost somewhere without ever getting to us. naturally the city thought we were criminals, so the next step was to issue a warrant for b's arrest for ignoring the citation. oh yeah, AND it had increased to $500.

b freaked out because he's like that, but i loved it. he called the city offices and they told him to write a note explaining the situation.

today we got a letter in the mail. not only was the warrant cancelled, they completely dismissed the charges! woot. no longer am i married to a criminal, but i've definitely learned a good government lesson: fight everything, even if you're a fugitive. you'll probably get off the hook.

utah rainbow

mba beginnings

b started orientation this week. so far he has climbed over obstacle courses at camp williams, met his first-semester group partners, attended a bunch of leadership / professional workshops and become known as "the nintendo guy."

first day of school -- they had to dress professional. i thought he looked cute:



last night we went to a bbq and i finally got to meet all the people he's been hanging out with this week -- and who he will be hanging out with, probably more than he'll be with me, for the next two years. everyone was really nice! and surprisingly, not evvvveryone had kids. yay! maybe i'll have kid-less friends here.

though we did have the bbq at a very child-friendly park, and there WAS a table marked "kid food" [chicken nuggets + fruit + cookies and candy -- with a distinct sign that said "children only" but you KNOW i lasted about 10 minutes before i kyped a handful for myself. come on, big kids like cookies too!]. after everyone finished eating we stayed at the tables and talked with people, but 90% of the group migrated to the playground with their ninos. i guess some things never change.

also i would like to say that so far my favorite thing about utah is being able to legally talk on my cell phone while driving. though of course that means IDIOTS are talking on their cell phones too and thus not driving well, but i like calling my mom on my way home from work without wrestling my hands-free earpiece.

outdoors

on thursday we went to see iron + wine and okkervil river in slc. this show was part of an outdoor summer concert series. i always like any type of show you can go to under the stars, but i doubt we would have chosen to go if brittany & spencer didn't invite us. it WAS a school night.



i actually never even saw the stage. we got there late and sat on the grass in a side wing of the concert area. i liked that even better! we had room to lounge around, spread out, eat our dinner and chat -- all while enjoying the great music.

we ate sandwiches [though mine was seriously missing the promised avocado] from a place called jimmy johns. food was sufficient, but they earned extra points for selling giant pickles for $1! yum.





highlights of the night included getting a can of pepsi thrown over our heads, b getting hit on by some chick, sharing a delicious orange-pineapple snow cone and watching spencer squeeze easy cheese into bugles and then eat them. i love britt and spencer and i'm glad they still live here!

we also did a lot of people-watching, as this event produced a major turnout of indie-style people with all sorts of weird piercings, tattoos and hair. except the difference between indie people in UT and indie peope in CA is that here they all have kids! so weird. maybe i haven't seen an indie 4 year old before, but it was entertaining.

best worst movie

this is me and my friend erica, two weeks ago at craft lake city. [don't click the link to her blog; she only updates once a quarter.]



erica and i met as freshmen in the dorms at byu. we bonded quickly over crazy hair highlights, nsync, instant messaging and communications classes. she is still one of my best friends and one of the only happy things i had to look forward to in coming back to utah.

erica has an older sister named lindsay. lindsay had [still has] a stellar career in PR, and when i decided i maybe wanted to declare PR as my major in college, erica said "hey! my sister does that! you should hook up with her." thus, my first college internship involved hanging out with lindsay in salt lake city one day a week, doing "research" for her clients but mostly just going out for long lunches and asking her all about life in the PR world.

lindsay became a great friend / mentor. she married a guy named mike and i went to their wedding. she & mike moved to LA right before b& i got married and we saw each other a few times around town.


[i ripped this photo off your fb, linds...it was just too cute not to share :) ]

mike was in a little movie called troll 2 when he was a kid. haven't heard of that movie? that's ok. some people [including me] say it's the worst movie EVER MADE. it's so bad it's actually hilarious. people all over the world have started a cult following, watching this movie and making fun of it. so, mike made a documentary called best worst movie, all about the crazy fans of this movie and how the original cast [mostly all nobodies who haven't done anything since troll 2 in 1989] have become pseudo-celebrities.

all this background is to tell you that friday night, we went to the tower theater in slc to see a screening of best worst movie at the salt lake film festival. the doc has been making the festival rounds and people everywhere are talking about it. b & i were so excited to finally see it!



and i LOVED the movie. it was hilarious [and a little sad] to see that these non-celebrities are treated like gods at these underground movie viewing parties. mike did a great job.



after the screening, the cast & crew did a q&a in the theater. and i was ridiculously excited to find out that a girl from singles ward was not only IN troll 2, she was at the screening! my family is obsesssssed with singles ward; i probably accidentally quote it at least once a day. so i HAD to take a pic with her. [disregard this paragraph if you're not mormon; you'll have no idea what i'm talking about.]


"are your parents EVEN democrats??"

all in all it was a fun night. and if you ever hear about a screening of best worst movie [or troll 2, for that matter] i highly suggest checking it out.

i'm ok

today is our one-month anniversary of officially moving to utah.

things are going well. i'm making friends at church and at work and i really like my job. the mountains are pretty. we get a lot of free dessert from the in laws. blogging/tweeting/IMs/emails keep me in touch with all my friends at home. b starts orientation next week. and my mom is coming up in a few weeks! yay.

yesterday i was freeeeezing cold in my new office, so this morning i grabbed my trusty dole blanket, which was my sidekick just about every single day at golinharris. for some reason our building in downtown decided that the hotter it was outside, the colder our offices needed to be, so it was typically freezing there too.

this blue blanket was a freebie gift because dole is (was?) a GH client, so i grabbed it as soon as i saw it. it is SO cozy and warm and i love it.

and today, just having it here at work with me makes me feel happy and good and content. when i was little, i was totally one of those blankie kids who needs their blanket at all times -- apparently i haven't outgrown the security blanket phase.

i think i'll be able to handle this utah thing after all.

utah

i am tired. but up past my bedtime because i accidentally took a long sunday nap today.

i would just like to say that EVERYONE in utah drives scooters. and if they don't drive a scooter they drive a motorcycle. which is totally fine with me; i fully support the two-wheeled crew [especially if they drive a yamaha]. what i do NOT support is that they do NOT ride safely! tonight we saw a guy on the freeway going 90 mph with NO HELMET. seriously. people are idiots and need to take a motorcycle safety foundation class. we need over-the-ankle boots, a riding jacket, long pants and sleeves, and HELMET. ugh.

end of rant.

also my new job is still fun. but i just hate the getting-used-to period of a new job. i think it takes six months before you're really used to something, so the fact that tomorrow is only day 4 poses a slight problem for me.

BUT, guess what? people in utah take lunch breaks. this is so exciting. i haven't taken a lunch break in a loooong time unless you count running to the post office or going out with my team. mostly i just snacked at my desk throughout the day and never really went outside. in utah you get a whole HOUR and everyone actually leaves. and then, at the end of the day, they go home right at 5 p.m.! this is all sort of a foreign alien wasteland to me, but i think i can get into this stuff.

that is all.

new job

today was so. so. so. great. i LOVE my new job. looooove. i can't even believe i'm getting paid for this stuff -- playing with and talking / learning about a subject i already adore. i told b, this job almost makes it worth it that we had to move to utah. almost.

then i got home and my little house-husband had made me a delicious meal of chicken quesadillas, chips and grapes. he found the recipe online and chopped up seasoned chicken breast, onions, green peppers and cheese. he is so cute.

i'd say today was a pretty good day.

saturdays are my fave

it's funny how saturdays are still the best day of the week, even when you're unemployed and basically every day is a saturday. but today was just really nice.

we slept in.
i read blogs.
we watched what not to wear [b loves that show now but will not admit it to anyone].
we went to the pool.
b's brother [who works at the pool] brought us strawberry-colada smoothies, on the house of course.
we saw 500 days of summer.
we went to dinner with the in laws.
we came home and will sleep in our OWN bed tonight.

we've been house-sitting in slc all week [except i bailed and came back to orem on thursday & friday to attend social events] and it's nice to be home now.

i was SO looking forward to seeing 500 days of summer...of course, with it being in limited release upon opening, it didn't come to slc until yesterday [but has been playing in LA for the past two weeks]. it fully delivered and i totally recommend it -- i laughed out loud a ton, loved the whole message and even cried a little. the relationship in the movie was so REAL...i could relate to so many things they said and did.

but i gotta say -- it also cracked me up because it was so "indie." i mean, sure, maybe i'm sensitive because it mirrored certain parts of my life, but seriously -- they got just about all the stereotypes of people our age. the clothes, shopping at ikea, regina spektor, chalkboard paint, straight-across bangs...it was hilarious. um...AND it was all set in downtown LA. WOO! i became so desensitized to seeing filmings all over downtown that i stopped paying attention, but i wish i could have seen this one going on. there was a dance number in there that i would have paid money to see.

hope you had a nice saturday as well :)