Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Who wore it better?

What happens when I skip a Thursday of Awkward and Awesome?  The awkwardness multiplies!

Awkward:

• Driving to California with Rukia refusing to be anywhere but on top of me or Chad. We were prepared to share the backseat with her on the ride, but not the fact that she would want to snuggle the whole way there.... and back.
• Resorting to cutting off the top of my banana with scissors because I couldn't get into that stupid thing for the life of me and there were no knives at work. BAH!
• Doggie diarrhea. That's what happens when your dog steals the whole can of tuna from the kitties. Not pretty. At least she has the courtesy in the dead of night to whine and lick my face to get me up and let her out instead of just "going" everywhere.
• Chad accidentally buzzing off his side burns. He's gonna love that I put this on here :)
• My visiting teachers came over a few weeks ago and as soon as they left I ran upstairs to change into stretchy pants and a t-shirt. Because my old worn out jeans are so restricting? Anyways, as soon as I get everything off there's a knock on the door and our home teachers decided to stop by. Chad ran Rukia upstairs to keep in our room and just laughed at me. Back into the jeans I went!
• Before Thanksgiving patients kept asking me what my plans were. I would excitedly tell them that we were going to California. They would then ask where. I would shake my head and sheepishly admit that I had no idea, I just knew we were leaving the desert, going to the beach and eating lots of Mexican food in addition to Thanksgiving. Isn't that all anyone needs to know to agree to a road trip?
• Stopping to use the bathroom at Subway and getting harassed by a tiny Asian lady my age. I went into the stall after her and she started knocking like crazy asking for her "bell". Huh? I quickly finished (give me a second lady!) and as soon as I came out she ran in. Clearly she lost her "bell". I washed my hands and she proceeded to yell at me about the "bell" and want me to look for it with her in the tiny bathroom full of women. I tried to leave and she pulled me back in. What the what? Clearly she thought I stole her "bell".  Finally another lady pointed to a belt under the sink and she finally let me go. I'm glad she could figure out what the crazy borderline abusive woman wanted because I was clearly no help. No need to apologize crazy pants.
• The doctors license plates in our parking lot. Seriously guys, it's not funny or witty or whatever it is that you're going for.

My doctor: Toejam (ewww, gross)

Plastic surgeon: FixIt

• We have new neighbors. Brittany came over to ask for our Wi-Fi password so they can use ours until they get theirs. She proceeded to then tell me all about how she lives with her baby daddy, they were high school sweethearts and got married when she got pregnant. But a year and a half ago they got divorced, but they still live together because of their baby. But they have separate rooms. Except now she's now 9 weeks pregnant. At this point she tosses her cigarette on the ground. And I am left with no words. Um.... nice to meet you?

Awesome:

• The ocean
• Not having to drive a single minute on the ride out to California and back, Thanks Pat!
• Testing out massage chairs at Bed Bath and Beyond
• Starbucks hot apple cider
• Peppermint coffee creamer in hot chocolate
• The movie, Just Friends. OMG, why don't I watch this movie everyday of my life. "Watch your face!"
• Having to decorate the office for Christmas. Wednesday was a strenous day peeps.
• We were behind the most annoying group of people at Cafe Rio. I won't go on and on becasuse... once we got up to pay, the worst offender gave us his meal stamp and we got our meal for free! Thanks super annoying line jumping dude, you made our night!

Count it down!

Our first married Christmas together I decided to make a little Countdown for Chad. Why wait for kids to create an awesome countdown, I'm super stoked for the holiday too! I went all out and made 25 Christmas cards. Some had activities for us to do, and some just had little love notes for days that were going to be too busy.

This year I was not going to make 25 Christmas cards, and I wasn't going to reuse the old ones, partly because I didn't want to look for them and partly because Christmas in the desert is going to be slightly different. We can't make snow angels, go sledding or build a snowman. It's just not happening.

So I made a new countdown this year, kept it nice and simple and I like how it turned out. I got to use my cricut and glitter, is there anything better? I glittered some clothes pins then glued them to some foam board (all from the dollar store!). I filled our countdown with things we would do anyways (decorate the tree, bake cookies), some surprises (shhhhh...) and some things that I want to do and don't want to forget (crockpot hot cocoa, make a wreath for the front door). I'm super excited for something fun everyday of the month, and Chad's excited for another month full of surprises!
 

 

My favorite part of cool weather

Dress: H&M, Leggings: Target, Boots: Payless

 

Cooler weather rocks. Hoodies, hot cocoa, changing leaves, jackets, and best of all leggings.

 

 Is it a shirt? Is it a dress? Who cares, I've got my leggings on!

 

 

Turns out Chad and I are becoming overly excited about Christmas this year, just like everyone else it seems. My immediate family is all coming out to visit for Christmas so I thing my excitement over the holidays is more of a reflection on my excitement to see my family :)

We've got a few decorations up, have seen numerous Christmas movies and drank more hot cocoa then a normal person should already. We're geeked to say the least. The rest of the Christmas festivities have found there way into our Christmas countdown for December. I did one the first year we were married as a surprise for Chad, and it looks like it will continue in all the years to come. While there is no shortage of countdowns on Pinterest I'll be sure to share mine soon so you can get excited about making your own this year too ;)

 

 

Linking up with:

ididtellyou

modernmodestbeauty

watchoutforthewoestmans

thisgirlslife

thepleatedpoppy

Happy Thanksgiving!

We thought our Thanksgiving might consist of the two of us at home in our p.j.'s eating a giant chocolate cake and watching Christmas movies Frasier. And while we would have enjoyed that we did get a better offer ;) Ashley and Pat invited us to tag along with them to his mom's house in California. We happily agreed and before we knew it we were off to a new state, walking along the beach, eating Mexican food for every meal, watching our crazy dog play with Linda's fun pups, and eating way too much turkey. Yup, that's right, turkey. It's the holidays, we splurged and went nuts.

 

Some things we are thankful for this year:

free meals from Cafe Rio

friday night Date Nights

snuggly scaredy cat animals

skype
a fancy smancy camera

a husband who likes to snuggle while sleeping, even in our king bed

mountain bikes
a dishwasher
mountains and sushine
a wonderful home (with windows for the sunshine!)
friends and family who travel so far to see us

Happy Thanksgiving friends!

My Phone Has Eyes

Our weekend:

 Date Night at Home, A plethora of desserts, errand running and Sunday morning naps for all!

Shenanigans in Peplum

Top: TJMaxx, Jacket: Target, Jeans:7 for all Mankind, Shoes: old converse

When I first bought this top I didn't know what "peplum" was. I just knew it was cute, flowy, and would be great if I was eating a lot of Mexican food as it's very forgiving on a full Mexican belly.

The first time I wore my cute little top I was helping Chad at a photo shoot. It was a windy day and this top ended up not being the best option. I could have basically been wearing a belly shirt, the wind just kept blowing it up, and my hands were otherwise occupied, wrestling with a reflector.

Oh, and the bending! Bending over, and down, picking things up and putting things away. My shirt just fell right into my face. Hello belly! It was ridiculous. Luckily for me it was mostly just ridiculous for myself. Chad and his client were pretty focused on the task at hand and not at his fumbling assistant with a wannabe belly shirt attacking her face.

{Not so} Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Sometimes my weeks really aren't awesome or awkward, they just are. They aren't that awful, but they aren't that great either, and by Thursday I'm just happy that the weekend is almost here, that I'm almost done with the work week, and that I don't have to be a receptionist/medical assistant/janitor/biller for 2 1/2 days.


Awkward:

• My stinky mood this week.

Awesome:

• My awesome husband for putting up with his moody wife. There were nightly back rubs, hot chocolates, and clean dishes to cheer me up.

Share the Awesomeness and Awkwardness of your week!

Meatless Monday: Minestrone Soup

Remember how we had to wait until just last weekend to get some Fall in our lives? Well, apparently "Fall" lasts for a whopping 1 week around here because we are past fall and into winter guys. My body must have adjusted to the 110 degree heat because it's 53 degrees today and I feel like I'm living in the Arctic!

No, really, it's not that bad, but the temperature did drop quite a bit though and it is feeling quite chilly. It even snowed Saturday! What?! For about 5 minutes it flurried and then the sunshine came back and all was right with the world ;)

So what does one do when faced with cold and chilly weather? Slap on your warmest pajamas, snuggle up with all of your animals in your bed and vow to drink hot chocolate until the spring? Close... we made a giant pot of soup.... and all of the above.

This soup is one of our favorites! If not our absolute favorite. Chad had a second bowl Sunday night at 1am. Yup, he ventured out of the warm bed all the way down the stairs to get a second bowl, that's how good this is. Then we had it as part of our dinner last night as well. Then we snuggled up in our bed with hot chocolates and hot ciders and didn't leave until our alarms went off this morning, hence this Meatless Monday on a Tuesday.

Snatched from Olive Garden, this recipe tastes very similar/exactly like theirs!

Minestrone Soup
The best part about this recipe is that it is a great way to use up anything on the verge of "going" in your fridge. It's also very forgiving. Don't like green beans? Leave them out and throw something else in! Really like carrots? Throw in 2 or 3! Go nuts and make it your own!

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup minced white onions (about 1 small onion)
• 1/4 cup chopped zucchini
• 1/4 cup green beans
• 1/4 cup minced celery (about 1/2 stalk)
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic (about 2 cloves)
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 (15 ounce)can red kidney beans , drained
• 1 (15 ounce)can small white beans or great northern beans , drained
• 1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup carrots
• 1 teaspoons Italian Seasoning
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups hot water
• 3 cups fresh baby spinach, chopped
• 1/3 cup small shell pasta

Directions:

Heat Olive Oil  over medium heat in a large soup pot.

Saute onion, celery, garlic, green beans, and zucchini in the oil for 5 minutes or until onions begin to turn translucent.

Add vegetable broth to pot, plus tomatoes, beans, carrot, hot water, and spices.

Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat and allow to simmer for 20 minutes.

Add spinach leaves and pasta and cook for an additional 20 minutes or until desired consistency.

Sunday Dress

Dress: Target, Leggings: Target, Shoes: Snatched from my sister :)

 
Introducing.... The Pajama Dress!!!

No, not a sweat dress....

a Pajama Dress! A dress so ridiculously comfortable that it rivals your pajamas. For me it's this guy, made out of stretchy, comfy t-shirt material. It's long enough, forgiving enough, it's perfect.

Wearing uncomfortable tights is not allowed with the pajama dress, but super awesome stretchy leggings are definitely ok ;)

Best part about this dress? I got it on sale in the maternity section at Target. Bam! That's right, the maternity section! This place is a gold mine people. Especially if you don't live in Utah where everyone is preggo. Target's maternity sale section  >  Utah's.

I'm 5'10" so finding dresses that approaches my knee is difficult. During the summer it's impossible. But... maternity dresses are usually longer not to mention more comfortable. And as long as there's no side, belly ruching, you usually can't tell. Just get it a size or two smaller and your good to go!

Linking up with MMB, WWIW

Five Things {Pinterest got right} Friday

It's waaaay hit or miss on Pinterest if you ask me. You don't have to take my word for it, check out Pintester, I laugh out loud every single time I read it. While I have had a LOT of flops, there have been a few successes, so I thought I'd share.

1. Use Vinegar as the rinse aid in your dishwasher. Our glasses aren't as filmy looking and everything looks much better in general. Super easy, super awesome.

2. Wrap up celery in tin foil to help it keep longer. By longer, I mean weeks people! We got 2 bunches of celery in one of our Bountiful Baskets a couple weeks ago. There was no way we could go through that much celery before it got all limpy and gross. Tin foil to the rescue! Wrap it up and it stays fresh and very crisp!

As a side note, who the heck needs this much celery?
preparetodaywardnewsletter.blogspot.com

 3. Zig Zag paper streamers. Easy, Fast, and they actually look cute. Score.

ohcrafts.net

4. The easiest, tastiest, PB cookies ever. Seriously. Make them right now. No lie, the internet will be here when you get back. While your at it, throw in some chocolate chips ;)

Last but not least...

Because if nothing else, I can usually find something to make me laugh, and sometimes that's what you need to make it through the day!

Happy Friday everyone, Have a rockin' weekend!

What Pinterest successes have you had?

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

My phone won't like up with the computer otherwise you would be seeing an awesome picture of a little present left for Chad by Rukia. Apparently Rukia had to go. She decided she couldn't wait for Chad to get out of class and went poo in the house. And then she covered it up with one of her stuffed animals! HA! I love that she felt so bad she covered it up. My dog's the best. Aren't you sorry you didn't get a big picture of dog poo with this post?

Moving on!

Awkward:

• Me running on a main street. I'm trying to run home from work twice a week now. Chad has late classes and instead of waiting after work for an hour for him to finish class, come pick me up, drop me off, then turn around and go back to school, I figured I could run the 4 miles home. Except the 4 miles is on a main road, and the first half is all uphill. And I hate running on a main road. I feel like I need to be running or walking. I feel like people are watching and judging and I end up looking even more crazy I'm sure. I sprint, then walk, then sprint, then walk... all up a giant 2 mile hill. Adding to the crazy... I had to run home with my phone in one hand, a giant wad of keys and my phone charger in the other. Nice.
• Making Chad late for his class last week and missing the announcement that his test was"take home", or online. He tried taking it at the testing center but they didn't have it - duh. A week and half later (his teacher was out for a week!) he was finally clued in. His teacher is super nice though and he can take it online at home this weekend. Wife fail.
• Walking around like an old, crippled lady, holding my back. Oh my back. It's the worst. Sitting hunched over a desk all day is not exactly helping the cause either. Usually after a few minutes I can manage to stand up straight, but until then it's a sad, pathetic situation.
• Our crazy cat. She gets so excited sometimes and starts purring and rubbing her face and body all over the back of the chair she likes to sit on. Well, it's all fun and games until she starts to fall headfirst and desperately tries to cling on with her back claws (no front claws for her) and just proceeds to slide face first into the ground. So graceful... so cat-like.
• Going to Panned Parenthood for the birth control. I ended up in a little room talking to some 21 year old "dude" about my birth control. Tell me that's not awkward. Then he explained how to use it, um... yeah, I know how, I've been using it for, oh, just a couple years. I'm sure they have to explain, but still, super awkward.
• My outrageously high blood pressure at Planned Parenthood. I freak out at new situations in general. So sitting there with the above mentioned dude wasn't helping the freak out. It was so high he thought something was wrong with the machine. Nope, just me trying to stoke out on you. Then he thought it would be better if we took it again. Yeah, nope. Just makes it worse. So how was it the second time? You guessed it, even higher than the previous stroke level.

Awesome:

• Getting the Wednesday off before Thanksgiving so I can spend it with my sister and her in-laws in California! Woot! Never been to California and we are super excited. We are even bringing the pup with us :)
• Homemade Broccoli Cheese soup.
• Coming home to a clean living room and most importantly a clean kitchen with the dishwasher running :) Point for the hubby!
• Red Bull with lunch today.
• Snuggling with all of our, all of a sudden, super needy animals. Usually they're just needy.

 

Let's hear it! Any awkward moments to share this week?

In search of Fall

We found it!

We called a hotel in the same area as Zion's National Park to see what the leaves were doing up there. Some crazy lady told us, "we'd missed it". "All the leaves have changed and fallen".

Just 2 weeks ago when we called we were told to come the first weekend in November, or even the second. We thought we were golden. Especially since everything is still very green around here.

We decided not to listen to the lady and drive up to Zion's anyway and hope there was still some color left for us.

Remember when I said the lady was crazy? I'm glad we didn't listen to her. I'm also thankful for the park ranger who let us in even though we accidentally left our park pass at home. We had a fun afternoon surrounded by a pretty good lookin' fall.

Get up and Go!

So how did last month's goals go? Meh, could have been better... My motivation just wasn't there.

You know for a fact that I am NO better at waking up early, in fact I think I'm waking up even later now. I went up to the church and played the piano once :( I still don't even OWN any floss or rinse. LOL, I couldn't, for the life of me, ever remember to buy any, even if it was on the grocery list! Oh well... try, try again.

We did eat way more fruit and veggies last month. And I did manage to be much better at doing the laundry. This last weekend's laundry is unfortunately still waiting to be put away, but it's clean! And, for the majority of the month, I was much better at getting it done, with Chad's help of course :)

Hopefully I'll be able to find my lost motivation and step it up this month!

So what's up this month?

1. Juice every morning with breakfast. Now that we are getting a ton of produce we have plenty to juice. And really, if we don't, we have a lot leftover that just goes bad. Side note, have you ever had fresh apple or grape juice? It's crazy good!

2. Workout! Before the Hawaii trip I was really good at working out, I had some really good motivation :) Really all I want to do now is curl up on the couch with some hot cocoa, chad, and snuggle down and watch tv. heaven. That plan doesn't leave me looking or feeling like heaven though so I've got to get up and move pre-Hawaii style.



3. Take time to be Thankful everyday.

Simply Vintage Girl

4. Play the Piano once a week!

5. Floss and Rinse. Attempt numero dos!

How do you stay motivated?

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Poor Rukia was such a matted mess from all the camping and running around this summer that we had to cut her hair in shifts, she would get tired, we would get tired or we would have to buy new clippers because her hair kills them! So she ran around looking like a darn fool with itty bitty little front legs and giant fluffy back bear legs. Luckily we've got her all evened out now!

Awkward:

• Driving in the parking lot of the grocery store next to the store and watching a shopping cart with a baby in it roll out into the parking lot.... right in front of us. Luckily we were paying attention. The dad and sister both ran out after the poor baby. We just laughed and waved while the dad looked mortified. I'd be lying if I said I don't enjoy watching awkward things happen to other people ;)
• Picking the size sticker off of one of Chad's shirts while we were out to dinner. He had worn and washed  the shirt multiple times.
• Trying to figure out what the heck these weird fruits/vegetables were in our Bountiful Harvest baskets. I tested my mom and brother with pictures and we still were stumped. Finally my mom figured out they were black radishes after seeing them on an episode of Chopped! Thanks Chopped! Still doesn't help me figure out what to do with them though.
• Becoming addicted to Frasier on Netflix. Frasier? Yup.
• Watching a guy struggle to bike up a hill/mountain on the side of the road, smoking.
• The leaves are still green and it was 80 degrees yesterday. Eighty. I'm freaking out. While it's nice to not have to wear a snowsuit in October, I can't wrap my brain around the fact that today is November! We will be taking trip #2 to try to find Fall this weekend. Wish us luck!

Awesome:

• My husband bringing up a jar of peanut butter, the bag of chocolate chips and a spoon to bed. Mmmm.
• Chad showing up at the testing center to take a test and they told him they didn't have it! Huh?! While he'll eventually have to take it, it was a nice ending to a hectic day!
• Finding semi decent apple cider at WalMart.
• No Dr. toady or tomorrow!
• Sleeping in until noon on the weekends :)
• Hiding from Trick-or-Treaters and eating all the candy ourselves! While I may not be able to go trick-or-treating I can now go out and buy whatever candy I want and eat it all!!! Bah-ha-ha-ha!