cranky pants

b was in a bad mood for, like, five days straight. a finance midterm and an accounting final will do that to some people i guess.

no problem, really, because most of the time he'll just shut himself up in our little office and leave me to sew / watch tv / read / bake. however last week he started taking his aggression out on ME which is not okay. don't worry, he wasn't beating me or anything -- he was just snapping at me for no reason and being bratty overall.

enter my mom. she is famous for making the world's best sugar cookies [i have the recipe, but have never made them...i'm sure they wouldn't be as good] and she makes them in different shapes / colors for every holiday. and sometimes she mails me a box of them when i live far away. she is the BEST.

last week we got a little box full of halloween treats from mom including five sugar cookies. b and i decided that meant we each got 2 1/2 cookies and not a crumb more. my share was gone in about...oh, two hours. b is the type that's not addicted to sugary desserts [puh] and easily saved his for a few days.

sunday he was being particularly bratty and went to our room to take a nap. i was mad at him and had to make dessert for dinner at the in laws and i was tired TOO, so i was a little cranky myself. then i saw the box of sugar cookies on the counter with one left. what did i do? ate half of his only remaining cookie. mwahaha. it was delicious.

he didn't notice until monday and i had to confess. he just laughed at me. yesterday he got the not-so-hot results of his accounting test back and IM'ed me to say he was in a bad mood again. this was the following conversation:
L: sorry :( don't worry, you'll be ok
B: i know, it just sucks
B: i'm in a bad mood
B: but i won't take it out on you
B: cuz you'll eat my cookie again

HAHA. yep, that's your punishment if you do something wrong in my house. watch out for those treats.

friend visits

i have been so spoiled lately with an influx of pasadena friends coming to visit!

last week our bff's the mcmullins came up so jeff could attend a conference at byu...and luckily melanie & henry decided to come too. they lived next door to us in p-town and we've spent many a night playing ticket to ride, painting and discussing football plays. i didn't take a picture of their visit but here's one of adorable henry, my favorite little guy [shamelessly ripped from their now-private blog]:



a week earlier, i'd had a fabulous girls' brunch with new-and-old pasadena friends -- all of whom blog, so you know we're perfect for each other. sachia came to town and planned the get-together [thanks again, friend] -- and turns out my lovely friend jen just moved to OREM of all places, so we carpooled up together with her two cute girls. at brunch i finally met laura, who moved out of pasadena right when i moved in [but i've blog stalked her ever since, so i feel like we're real friends...ha]. AND i met sachia's friend amy, who has no association to pasadena but is just a cool girl.



yeah...three high chairs, four kids meals, and plenty of fun girl talk. i was, of course, the only non-mommy there, but i had fun watching the moms try to corral their children. i was wiped out when i got home -- i don't know how these girls do it!

here's me, sachia and amy -- SO glad to know there are cool girls already living in utah. i have a feeling amy and i will be great friends:



anyone else care to visit utah county? we have a whole extra bedroom just waiting for you :)

p.s. if you're needing to cross a good deed off your list this week, i'm hosting a card drive on my paper blog. feel free to join in!

look who's coming round the bend...

[photo from last year's christmas cruise]

christmas is coming! okay, not really. halloween is actually coming. but i am totally in a christmas mood.

we've been planning for the holidays at work and i'm surrounded by paper and ribbon with snowmen and santas all over it, so that helps. but also today i am starting my christmas preparation!

for gifts, i've decided to try to go all handmade. we'll see if this actually happens. my new sewing machine [and some very helpful online tutorials] have inspired me to try to make something for every member of our two families. i figure starting in october will help me feel less stressed out.

also...christmas cards. i'm feeling pressured to have something AMAZING because, you know, i work for a freaking scrapbook company AND i have a blog all about paper and stationery. yeah. we'll see how that turns out too :)

so, basically, i'm spending this beautiful fall day planning out the aforementioned activities -- but NOT listening to christmas music [i will still stick to my principles and not bust that out until after thanksgiving].

and then we're going to the byu/tcu homecoming game tonight! woo hoo. college game day from espn is filming in provo today and you should SEE the little co-eds running around with delirious excitement. you'd think they'd never seen a camera before.

and p.s. -- christmas also means the 3rd annual cookie exchange! yaaaay. except that i have made maybe 4 friends here in utah, so i'm guessing it won't be quite as huge as years past. feel free to drive up for the party :)

last year's feast:


oh, and p.p.s. -- 10 points if you can name the song that contains the title of this blog. jean, i'm looking at you.

hooray for the holidays!

provo fall

**i ripped this photo from here. sorry for stealing, but that picture is just way too gorgeous not to share! and when you see MY photos below, you'll understand why i steal from others more talented than myself ;)

i cannot get over how amazing the fall colors are around here. who knew fall was so incredible??

sure, when i left for work this morning and there was ice on my windshield [and i was wearing a sweater, scarf and thick woolly jacket], i started missing the perpetual 70-degree weather back home, but...sorry, california. your palm trees got nothin' on utah's fall foliage.

this is a giant now-yellow tree right outside our apartment:

my favorite thing so far is that some trees and bushes turn BRIGHT red for fall. i get so excited whenever i see one -- they are so vibrant. [excuse the bad cell phone shot -- took it while driving]:

check out this cute post from nie for more photos of beautiful provo fall. yes i live in the same town as her and no i haven't run into her [but i DID see her sister last night at dinner! ha].

now if you'll excuse me i need to go dive into a pile of leaves.

three.

today is our THREE year anniversary.



three reasons i'm glad to be married to b today:
one. he sent flowers to me at work. but they weren't just flowers -- they came with chocolate too!! major bonus points. i think after three years of marriage b knows me quite well. i told him next year to skip the flowers and just send candy.
two. he makes me laugh. and can quote movies with me all day long. today we g-chatted jurassic park quotes throughout the afternoon.
three. he didn't even bat an eye when i decided to wear my purple tights + ankle boots to dinner. that man has more style appreciation than half the people in utah county.

b is thoughtful and appreciative and always tells me i'm pretty no matter how un-cute i'm feeling. he doesn't get mad when i eat the entire bag of halloween oreos. he plays mario kart with me even though i suck. he is my best friend.

to celebrate, we went to dinner at spark -- a swanky new-ish nightclub / restaurant in town. it was deeeeelicious. they specialize in non-alcoholic cocktails -- b had a mixed berry martini and i had a shirley temple [yes, with cotton candy on top].




dinner was filet mignon for b, cornbread-stuffed chicken for me. for dessert we shared a guava panna cotta and chocolate mousse / hazelnut ice cream / carmelized grapefruit. yes i'm still drooling.



annnnd to continue the celebration, next month we're going to see billy joel + elton john in concert. does that mean i like to hang out with 50 year olds? maybe. but i am SO excited about it. i've always looooved billy joel, and i think seeing him play with elton will be amazing.

so i guess we're giving a birthday-month touch to anniversaries now and making them last a month...which i am totally okay with.

i like tv.

something has happened to me since i got sick. my typical type A, nonstop, must-be-productive-at-all-times personality has disappeared. now i am content to sit on the couch and watch tv for hours at a time. part of me is disgusted by this, but 80% of me loooooves it. i haven't even used my planner in a week. being lazy is fun.

also yesterday i got pulled over for going 50 mph in a 25 zone. payzants don't handle cops too well [my little brother threw up in the bushes when he got pulled over once because he was so nervous...that's still one of my favorite stories] and this was no different.
i cried a little and said i just moved here, which is mostly true. the CA plates must have helped. the cop was super nice and let me go with only a warning. i must be living right. or maybe i should really tone down the driving.

and halloween candy will be the death of me. i've eaten almost a whole bag of mini reeses cups in the past five days, by myself! [dana, that is for you.]

october

b has been out of town the past few days, so i hosted a girly party one evening with some of my old roommates who still live in town. now that it's october, i naturally chose a halloween theme.





i baked pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and dipped peanut butter & jelly sandwiches in halloween sprinkles [inspired by this blog]. we had a lot of fun.

also this week i drove up to park city a few times for a work event. to get there, i had to drive through provo canyon, all along a local river and through the giant mountains that are up here. [and um...it snowed on me. twice. ugh.] the trees up there are all changing colors and it was GORGEOUS. fall is truly an amazing season.

this was my drive [i stole this pic from my friend kami...she is a much better photographer than i!]:



annnd our anniversary is coming up this month. i'm excited to celebrate the big three years -- especially since last year i was on the other side of the country on our actual anniversary. this year has got to be better than that :) plus i love october because of halloween...i can't wait to watch hocus pocus. and stuff myself on the halloween candy i've already bought.

today is saturday and i have nothing to do until tonight. i'm still in my pajamas and have watched three episodes of america's next top model so far [how did i never know how great that show is??]...i predict i'll squeeze a few more episodes in before i pick b up from the airport. lazy saturdays are the BEST.

ii MEXICO !!

my little brother grant will turn 19 years old in december.
mormon boys typically go on missions for our church when they turn 19.
[maybe you've seen them around? they ride bikes and teach people about the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints.]

a couple months before your 19th birthday, you get your wisdom teeth out
go to the dr to get a perfect bill of health
fill out paperwork saying if you know another language, have family in other countries, etc etc
start saving $$ for the mission
and then you put these "papers" in the mail and wait to get a packet back, telling you where you will live for the next two years.
and TODAY his packet came!!

little granty departs february 24 to spend the next two years of his life in

TORREON, MEXICO!!!

coooool. this is not an understatement when i say this is the biggest news to hit our little family in the past few years. you can learn more about torreon here :)

when i was 19, pretty much every guy friend i had in college received a similar packet in the mail and ended up going all over the world -- japan, paraguay, canada, south africa, and of course even new york city and atlanta. [b went to germany, but came home two years before i even met him.]

so i guess you could say i've been around these missionaries and their letter-opening ceremonies many many many times before. but never my own BROTHER! typically you can get an idea of where they're going to go before they even open the envelope, but i really never would have guessed mexico for him, ever. and now that i know this is where he's going, i am so excited!

anyway. still five months before he leaves, still have the office and project runway to watch tonight and a kitchen to clean. so life goes on. but i thought i'd share the big news here first :)

p.s. feel free to ask any questions you have about missionary work...i don't think this is a very complete explanation of what they do!

the recovery

yesterday i stayed home sick from work. i haven't taken a sick day in three years, unless you count the occasional couple hours i usually skip whenever i get a migraine.

on sunday night i was still hoping for the best...i have a lot going on at work this week, so missing a day would probably not be advantageous. however on sunday night i was also still feeling like crap. b and i skyped with my parents that night and my own mother said "wow, you don't look very good." thanks.

when yesterday rolled around i could barely get out of bed. so i texted my boss the update and went back to sleep. i did work on a few work-related activities later, but i spent the rest of the day reading blogs, taking a nap and watching AMC for six hours. these are the movies i watched:

a. jumanji [wow. i used to LOVE that movie when i was 12. now it seems so cornball. and i suspect many psychological inferences due to the fact that his dad is also the hunter...hmm. also b reminded me of the 14 times i have been told i look like kirsten dunst. that's a story for another time.]
b. the secret of my success [80's michael j. fox movie. it was vaguely entertaining, though i was slightly offended to learn his "secret" was to sleep around. sleazy.]
c. raising helen [i liked it much more last night than i did the first time i saw it.]

then we finished the night up with a round of scrubs, which we watch every night. as you can see, it was glorious.

also glorious? i've had zero appetite for three days, so that's helping the waistline. today at work we had all these treats out all day for an open house and i straight up walked right past the plate of cookies TWO times without even a second glance. i won't lie -- cookies do not sound appealing to me right now. what is the world coming to??

anyway, b has been taking care of me by providing vitamin water, soup, and a friend to watch movies with. he is really nice -- even if he squirts anti-bacterial hand gel all over himself every time he holds my hand.

today i was back at work -- feeling slightly better. i think i'm on the upswing...and relieved it's not swine flu :)

conference weekend

saturday morning i woke up feeling like death...i have a cough + aches, fever, headache, etc. so you tell me -- cold or flu? who knows. basically i feel like crap and barely moved the whole weekend.

however. this weekend was the general conference of my church, something i look forward to the whole year, so this was horrible timing for me to be sick! every six months the worldwide leaders of the mormon church get together in salt lake city to share talks and guidance of what we should know for the next half-year. when i was in college we'd go up and watch it live in the conference center in downtown slc, but while i lived in CA we just watched it on satellite tv. now that we're back we had tickets for the saturday afternoon session and i was so excited to go see it in person.

also my brother came down to visit us for the weekend, all the way from idaho! b and i were so excited to have him here, and since he'd never been to conference before we were all looking forward to going.

annnnd then i felt sick. but miraculously [thanks to modern medicine + zicam] i pulled it together enough to get in the car and drive up to saturday afternoon session. i was regretting this by the end and had to come home to take a long nap, but it was so worth it.

here's the inside -- the conference center is super massive [i think it seats more than 21,000 people] and so pretty. we got to sit in the 40th-ish row on the floor. woot.



here's me and the hermano inside, to prove we were there:



and of course the three of us out front, after conference [you can see the salt lake temple, where b and i got married, in the upper right corner]. if i look like crap, it's because i felt like crap:



i LOVE general conference. it just feels so good to take a time out every six months, reevaluate how i'm living my life, and figure out what i can do to be a better person. i get to listen to our prophet and learn what God wants me to do. i feel inspired and happy about life -- my church gives me hope, peace and answers to those things i wonder / worry about. yay for conference!