Life Lately

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm not a cat person in the least (mainly it stems from the fact that I'm insanely allergic to them). BUT, lately I've been completely entertained by a cat named 'colonelmeow' on Instagram. I'm a little embarrassed to admit how much time I spent looking through (and laughing at) his pictures the first day I found his account. For those not familiar with colonelmeow, he's a cat that's grumpy looking 24/7 - the pictures his 'Master' posts on Instagram are always, always, hilarious. 

Meet Colonel Meow:

I think Colonel Meow could probably make friends (or be frenemies) with this cat I found on Pinterest. This one definitely made me LQTM*. A lot. Enjoy.

Wow, did I seriously just write a blog post about cats? Am I 'that' person? *sigh* To make up for it, I'll post a picture of what I ate for lunch today. Yay for Brussel-sprouts. Does it mean I'm officially an adult if I choose to eat them on purpose? Take that, picky eaters of the world.

Oh, and I am beyond excited to go home for Christmas in two weeks and two days (but who's counting?). I can't remember the last time I was able to go home for more than 5 days at a time, so the thought of staying for (possibly) ten days makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Ten days with the family... relaxing... wearing pj's all day long... not being at work... eating good food... Christmas... reading... napping... ahh. Can't wait! 

Merry Christmas! 

*LQTM = laugh quietly to myself

Life Lately

Oh hey, blog, nice to meet you. Yes, I know I've severely neglected my blog lately. I'll try to make it up to you by posting the smorgasbord-iest blog posts of all blog posts:

Thanks to Pinterest, I've had the urge to cook. And bake (weird, right?). At the beginning of June I decided to buy myself one of these (a cast iron pot):

To make some of these:

I've never really baked bread lately, so I was quite pleased with the results. The top loaf is cranberry/white vanilla chip ... and the bottom is plain white bread. Oh my. That cranberry/white vanilla chip bread was DELISH (not to toot my own horn or anything...). I'll definitely be adding that one as a staple in my bread-making endeavors. 

Oh, then I decided to get me one of these: 

I have a few friends that are really into biking, so I decided to jump on the band-wagon (hey, anything to get me to exercise 'for fun' sounds like a good idea). 

The first time I took my bike out for a spin, it was tons of fun. But, the next day, my tush was SORE. That's what I get for not riding a bike in 10 years... a couple days later I wanted to go on another bike ride with my friend Wendy, so I decided to improvise a bit. I hadn't gotten the 'special padded bike shorts' yet, so I decided to be innovative. Here was my invention:

Yes, indeed, that is a hoodie wrapped around my bike seat (what you can't see is a small kitchen towel folded neatly underneath the hoodie). Wendy laughed at me, but I was able to ride my bike up the Millcreek Pipeline trail just fine* where we got to see this view (although, my tush definitely pained me the next day):

*by 'just fine' I meant with minimal tush pain. I am scared of heights so the trail we took wasn't very 'Berkley-friendly' with all the steep drop offs... Wendy was very patient with my turtle-like speed up the mountain, though...(thanks Wendy!!).

Oh, and a few weeks ago I changed my hair again. Hello bangs, hello lighter hair. I'm trying to go back to my natural blonde color, so we lightened it up a bit more. 

Speaking of lightening things up, the weather in SLC has been perfect lately; I snapped this photo on one of my lunch breaks. I'm sure my good friends on Instagram are getting tired of my temple square pictures, though... my bad.

Oh, and in case you're looking for good books to read, I've been buried under a heap of books called 'The Rangers Apprentice' series by John Flanagan. I'm currently reading the last book...(I think there were 11? I can't remember) but I've been putting it off because I don't want to be sad when the last book finally ends. Does anybody else get sad when a really great book ends? Just kidding, I know other people get sad. That's what Pinterest is for.... to let me know I'm not alone in this world... ha ha

Anywho. This about sums my life up for now. Until next time! 

Hair + Comments

Remember that one time that I was blonde? Those were good times.

Well, Easter weekend I dyed my hair red. Those were good times, too.

Last night I decided to dye my hair again... this time DARK. It's so dark it's almost black - with a purple-ish tint to it. I LOVE it!

Who knows what next month's color will be... my hair grows stinking FAST so I'll probably have to color it once a month so my blonde roots don't cause my hair part to look like it's floating...

I think some of the best parts about dying my hair are the crazy comments I get. 99% of them are good comments, but this one older Sister Missionary that I work with doesn't have... tact. When I first dyed my hair red she gushed about how great it looked (which is fine), but then she said I looked 'washed out' back when I had blonde hair. Really? Awkward. THEN, this morning when I showed up with my new, dark hair she asked 'what color were you trying to do?' Double awkward. Some people really need to learn to keep their mouths shut... ha ha

It's been fun experimenting with my hair color - I've never been brave enough before to change my blonde hair to anything too drastic, so I'm loving the change!

Curling, eh?

Friday night my friend Wendy invited me to go Curling with her and some of her peeps. It was some good times! But, I was definitely NOT good at the sport. I was perhaps at an average-skill as a sweeper, but I cannot throw worth beans. At all. It was actually pretty comical...

This is me trying to slide the stone.

To Curl, you start out by crouching down in 'happy dog' position (with your bum in the air). Your right foot is in a starting block and your left foot on a slippery slipper. You push off, sliding with the slippery foot forward and your 'starter-block' leg being drug behind you with all your weight balanced on the white pipe thing in my left hand (see the pic). Maybe that's why I was so horrible... I have zero upper-body strength... 1.2 seconds after I left the starting block I basically collapsed in a puddle on the ice. ha ha so great.

Anywho, now I can say I've been curling! How many people can say that? 

Upgrade Time

I finally decided to upgrade my phone! I've been able to to upgrade since October, but I've been too lazy, er, or something to do it until now. 

I got the iPhone last night and have been in LOVE with it since! Shoot, if I knew how awesome this phone was I would have upgraded 6 months ago. I had some fun with it last night and did Facetime calling with a few of my siblings. Here's a gorgeous screen shot of me with my sis Moriah. hehe

Also, I don't know how it's possible... but my phone made me feel ashamed last night. I was learning how to use Siri and she said (in quite the snobbish voice) 'you don't have to push the button every time you ask me a question' (or something along those lines). Oh boy...you know technology is running rampant when it affects your self-esteem. ha ha... #firstworldproblems

Masters of Style

If I was a guy... I'd get this razor. Just saying. Well done commercial people... well done.

Don't Eat Buckyball Magnets

Um, so my poor little Nephew Carter (who turns 2 in May) has been throwing up a lot lately. SO, my sister in law brought him to the hospital a few days ago and demanded that they do an x-ray (or something) on the poor baby to see what is wrong. Good thing she brought him to the hospital... because it turns out he's been swallowing a TON of those buckyball magnets and they created a huge mass in his stomach. They did a scope procedure this morning to get the magnets out and this is what they took out (my sister in law counted them and it ended up being around 66!!):

Crazy, right?? Poor little guy.

5 Words

Zac Efron and Taylor Swift.

Oh my gosh, these two videos left me with the biggest, goofiest smile on my face. Love them!

ENJOY.

Bookstores

So, sometimes I get the urge to quit my job and go work at a small bookstore (eh, preferably own the Bookstore, but I'll take what I can get). 

For example, the kind of Bookstore shown in 'Just Like Heaven' where Jon Heder works. You know, the quirky small Bookstore type. I would have 5 customers a day and could spend all my time reading books and writing short stories for my friends (Court I still need to write that 'The Girl Who...' series. ha ha).

Well, a girl can dream, right? Perhaps someday I'll take the plunge... if I win the lottery. 

For All the Single Ladies

Ladies, take note. This fellow is a genius.

Jazz Games and Landscaping Duty

I think I've been ruined forever. Well, when it comes to Jazz games that is. I used to be happy with the free nose-blood tickets I occasionally got at work. But, the last 2 Jazz games I've gone to have ruined all future expectations of Jazz games. Last Friday I got to watch the Jazz beat Memphis from a suite. Yeah, I KNOW. Then the last game I attended (the end of last season) was lower level, about 9 rows up from the floor. It's amazing how much better games are when you can actually see the player's faces. 

The only thing missing was my old friend, Kirilenko. I'm quite sad that I won't get to watch my favorite Russian play bball anymore.  I might have to add a few stanzas to my Ode to Kirilenko to help give myself some closure. For now I'll continue to wear my Kirilenko jersey to bed every night. 

I am highly jealous of their Jazz snug snug. 

Oh, and welcome to the team Alec Burks. I may have to replace my Kirilenko jersey with a Burks jersey because, you know, we share the same name. I'll look past his 'optional' spelling of Berks this time around.

After the Jazz game I helped an old ward friend prepare to propose to his girl, Ellie, by helping to blow up a TON of balloons. And by TON, I mean a TON:

Well, I guess I wasn't really the one that 'blew up' the balloons. I mainly helped out by tying off balloons and attaching ribbon to them. Let me just tell you though... at the beginning of the evening it took me 37 minutes to tie off a single balloon (ok, not that long) but by the end of the night I became a trained professional and I am proud to announce that I can now tie off a balloon in approximately .37 seconds. Don't try that at home though, kids. My fingers were killing me by the end of the night from my blazing balloon tying skills and it reminded me of the quote from Happy Gilmore when the Grandma says: "My fingers hurt..." and Ben Stiller says: "well, now your back's gonna hurt, cause you just pulled landscaping duty!"