The Pot Calling the Gina Black

Cody's Birthday

2012-02-16T09:11:00.003-07:00

I am finally back to report on Cody's Birthday! It went a little like this:

I spent a long time on this decoration. A handmade birthday banner. It is something we can hopefully keep for a long time to make bday's special.

{Birthday Menu}

Appetizers:
Boneless Wings from Wing Nutz
7 Layer Dip from Costco

Beverage:
IBC Cream Soda

Main Course:
Jimmy Johns Sandwiches

Dessert:
Costco American Chocolate Cake
(We still have half a cake after 2 weeks. It is huge!)

Cody woke up to this yummy breakfast. And also maybe to the smoke alarm that went off twice because of it. I made him lunch and he had a bday note in his lunch bag as well. He gets well fed on his birthday.

When he got home we had dinner and he received a shirt with a fly fisherman on it and a picture of a weed whacker on it to represent the real gift. Then we tried to watch the Robin Williams version of Popeye... but that was weird. Very weird movie.

That weekend we went to the Pizza Factory and got a pizza in the shape of a 24. We went to the movies, and shopped for the weed whacker (Cody spent about 1 1/2 hours in the store deciding) and we finally got one! Take that, yard from Hades!

I think it was a birthday well done!

Home

2012-01-26T10:49:00.004-07:00

Picture 1 - Some recent chalk board art I did. In the spring his antlers will start spouting leaves and flowers. :)
Picture 2 - My new terrarium lamp. Something I have coveted from Pottery Barn for quite a while. I finally found one at TJ max! It's so versatile and can change with the seasons.

Picture 3 - Regan, watching me take pictures.

Not much is happening. Cody is in school until 6 - 8 everyday. I am trying to figure out how to make a huge world map that is a mix between this amazing map and the below art by my hero, Mary Blair. If only I had her talent.

But unfortunately, I don't know much about painting. I need this to happen though. We have been planning out making a map for Cody's office for a while now. At first it was going to be cut out of old atlases and put together in little bits and pieces. Then it evolved into a fabric map, each state sewn together with different fun materials. Then I saw The Map of my dreams and there is no going back. It must be painted. And detailed and awesome. I am inspired and discouraged all at once because I don't know how to create something like that. I don't even know where to begin. I need help.

Next week is Cody's 24th birthday. I am busy planning and creating things for that so I will update on how it goes.

Surrendering

2012-01-12T14:37:00.002-07:00

Since getting married 3.5 years ago, I have been urged by my husband and sister to combine accounts like a normal married couple. It is “the way it’s supposed to be,” and all that. I was not keen on the idea of this because I thought it would mean Cody analyzing every move I made with the bank account. How would Christmas work? Birthdays? He would be able to see where and how much I was spending which would ruin surprises for sure. And in the end, I realized I just didn’t want Cody to see how much I spend on unnecessary things.

But after several months of living from paycheck to paycheck, not knowing where our money was going, not knowing how the heck we were going to afford saving for a family, we decided to try a budget. We attempted this several times in the past couple years, actually. We would write everything down, trying to figure out how much money we needed for what. And in the end, on paper, we would have money left over. But in real life? Not so much. That extra cash did not seem to exist in real life. It was just… elusive. And we had no idea how to make this budget thing work. So it failed.

Finally we said “Ok, we will combine our accounts as soon as we get our (my) debt paid off.” I have a credit line that I had been a slave to for quite a while. When I could pay a few dollars off, by the next week or two I had dipped right back into it. One step forward, two back. I kept chipping away at it but it seemed that we would never get there.

And then a happy surprise check came in the mail one day last month. We were able to pay off all of my credit line debt, credit card debt, and a few other things, start a savings account, and create a combined account with BOTH of our names on it. Oh, and we also went out to dinner. Haha. It was such a huge, unexpected blessing!

But as all of this was happening, I was still skeptical of being under surveillance. Not knowing how much I could spend on random things. Somehow draining our account by accident and getting in trouble and ruining everything.

And then Cody, my cute, cute hubby, spent many hours of his time on creating a master budget excel sheet. Now there is a plan. A real plan that actually works. And I have to admit, I LOVE it! Even though I have a limit on my spending, at the same time I somehow feel like a rich person. Especially compared to where we were a few months ago.

And I don’t have to worry about any surprises being ruined! Cody figured out a plan full of fancy excel formulas. Our checks are deposited into the main account. Then we take out $300.00 ($300.00!) a month for emergencies and for our future family fund. This is a huge deal for us because until now we haven’t had any savings at all most of the time.

The bills come out of this master account, and a certain amount of money is deposited into our own accounts that we are allowed to spend on anything we wish. It is a very strange feeling to be able to spend a little cash on something I want and not feel guilt.

Actually I still feel guilt, but that is a gift I received from my …let’s just say “fiscally responsible” father, and I am working on squashing this habit.

So I am happy. We have had a weight lifted off our shoulders. And to think I was resisting this!

a groovy christmas

2011-12-19T18:02:00.008-07:00

This year for our Christmas card we decided to channel the likes of the brady bunch and Ron Burgandy.

I think detail is what makes things special, but you couldn't really see it all in the card we sent out. Because I am a lover of vintage, the only thing we had to purchase for this photo shoot was Cody's jacket. Everything else in the picture is from my own collection including the mushroom painting done by my grandfather in 1977, the Merry Christmas cross stich, the 70's ornaments that belonged to Cody's mother, my favorite lamp, the mushroom figurine from a local antique shop and candles found in this very house. Behind Cody is a Bobby Goldsboro record (which we have never listened to but bought because of its obvious awesomeness), and next to me are the Carpenters Christmas albums. Behind them is a black sabbath record. Just for fun.

My dress is my favorite, even though Cody thinks it's ugly. It is a vintage 70's boho pioneer (?) type dress. You know, from back when people thought dressing in long pioneer style dresses and bonnets was stylin' Which is was. I'm sad that you can't see my dress in this photo very well.

Oh yeah, and the chair that someone abandoned in this house a friend was renting out. Jealous?

Here is a version of the card we sent out to family and friends last week.

And don't feel bad for my husband. Just envy him.

I think we're haunted...

2011-12-08T10:42:00.003-07:00

Ok.

I know that there are perfectly logical explanations for the goings on that I am about to divulge, I just don't know what they are.

Let me preface by saying that I live in my grandparent’s house. I moved in after they went to a rest home, and they both passed away shortly thereafter.

Last night was a very restless night. I woke up to the light of my touch light, which is all the way over in my bathroom, but I can see it clearly from where I sleep. This happens sometimes, always in the middle of the night. Just every once in a while it comes on, on its dimmest setting.

Usually it does not bother me, I push my first thoughts of ghosts out of my mind otherwise my imagination will get out of hand. Besides, what ghost would do that? I can't think of any dead people that I know who are obnoxious enough to do that. I think that it was probably just some kind of weird power surge (I don't know what a power surge includes, but why not?) or maybe a short of some kind.

But why is it always in the middle of the night? The time of day that my mind is most likely to run away with me. And last night it was on its brightest setting which hasn't ever happened before. It has to be touched 3 times for it to be on the brightest setting. So of course, being the person that I am, I was a little unsettled.

But I pushed it out of my brain long enough for me to fall asleep again.

And then, it happened again. I woke up an hour later to the same thing. This time I was a little freaked out, and I unplugged the dang thing.

I go to sleep and proceed to have my least favorite type of nightmares. The ghosty type. I have these pesky dreams sometimes, and some of them are so real that I still have not completely convinced myself that they were actually dreams. The last one basically consisted of me waking up in my bed, feeling something invisible getting into bed with me, and then pressing me down so hard that I couldn’t move any part of my body, I couldn’t even breathe. I woke up with my heart beating out of my chest. That one was real, real freaky. And hopefully just a dream.

The one I had last night was more obviously a dream, but still flipping scary. It usually occurs to me that I am dreaming whilst in the dream, but last night that did not happen. I had the ability to feel ghosts, I would run into them sometimes in my house. I was like the ghost whisperer, but without actually being able to see them, and without the easy charm of Jennifer Love Hewitt. Anyway, there was a particularly annoying ghost, and my mom told me I had to herd it into this closet, board it up, and never go in there again. I was thinking “can’t ghosts just float through the walls and boards?” But apparently not. Anyway, it was a very stressful and long and scary dream.

So, I am willing to believe that my stupid touch light is just on the fritz. However, that does not explain the remotes in my living room.

Every 6 months or so, one of our remotes goes missing. Perfectly regular and unexciting, I know. BUT. The first time it happened, I looked everywhere. It wasn’t anywhere in the living room. So for some strange reason, I decided to look clear across the house in the bathroom cabinet. And that is where it was. I figured that it was either my sleepy sister or her son that had done it on their way to bed when they were staying with me a few days prior. She swore that it couldn’t have been her, she doesn’t sleep walk, or anything like that. I still thought that it was probably one of them.

And then the next remote went missing a few months later. We tore the living room apart. Our couch swallows things, so I looked in every crack, under the couch, behind the couch. It was driving me nuts. It was nowhere. I swear to you, every crack of that couch was searched thoroughly. It was missing for a few weeks. Then our other remote went missing. I looked and looked. And guess what I found? The first remote, in a very shallow crack in the couch. I almost lost my ever-loving mind. Again, I SWEAR to you that I searched that couch, that CRACK SO well. The remote was not there. And then suddenly, months later, there it was. Practically lying on top of the couch.

That was the point that I felt something strange was going on. Anyway, I later found the second remote. Now our PS3 remote is missing. This time, we literally took the sectional couch apart and lifted it off the ground and moved it. There was a lot of stuff, but no remote. Again, we have looked everywhere possible and it is nowhere to be found. I know that people lose remotes. But my remotes seem to fall into the netherworld when they go missing. When I lose stuff now and I look everywhere and can’t find it, I always look, while laughing at myself, in the bathroom cabinet. I haven’t ever found anything in there since the first time, though.

I guess I will just have to wait for the PS3 remote to reappear on its own. Or, you know, with a little otherworldly help.

Christmas is Aloof!

2011-12-07T09:59:00.009-07:00

Hello there, Merry Christmas! I know "Christmas is aloof" doesn't really make sense to normal people. It is my families way of saying "Christmas is in the air." Not "Christmas is conspicuously uninvolved and uninterested, typically through distaste" like the dictionary might lead you to believe. I don't know why we use the word aloof, but we do, and we like it.

It is time for my Christmas Decorations post once again. Since I didn't sew 1,000 throw pillows for this season, decorating went a lot faster than Halloween did, thank goodness.

This year, some decorations got switched up, and some stayed the same. Like the display below. Isn't the wall art cool? I found it at a thrift store last year. It's just a bunch of vintage Christmas cards glued to wood!

Here is the living room:

Every year we get one or two new ornaments for our tree. We only get the ones that we really, really like so they are more special.

Cody thought it was pretty ridiculous that every time I went to the thrift store, I would come out with a wreath. It was all for this little display. I LOVE how it turned out. It looks way better in person. Each vine wreath has its own little red accent.

I did my shelves much different this year. I got this cute framed subway art from a free download on Pinterest.

This is my new favorite item. He is a Jim Shore Santa. I love Jim Shore!

Cody is amazing. He made me these little houses that I now decorate for every season.

Tiny Wreaths!

The nutcracker and snowman shelves pretty much stayed the same as last year.

The dining room:

The fireplace:

This is the only craft I have made this year. I gathered the pine-cones from Cedar City months ago so I could make this garland.

I think one of the reasons I like decorating so much is because of how good I feel once a project is finished. I love to walk away from the area for a while and then surprise myself with how great and different it looks whenever I come back to see it. Ha.

This year Cody finally put Christmas lights on the house! I was so excited to see him up there with the ladder, fixing dead lights and being brave on the roof. He never got around to it in the past years, and it made me a little jealous to hear about men who got up early to get a Christmas tree before their wives woke up, or to see them up on their roofs before Thanksgiving even came. I guess this is just because Christmas is a huge deal in my family, and Cody's family never made a big thing out of the holidays. I just want him to get excited about these things and he just isn't the "excited" type. But this year he made some effort. Bravo, husband!

Side note, Cody's mom also didn't have many Disney Movies around. It is insane to me that he never saw Mary Poppins before I came along. INSANE.

The Baby Shower

2011-12-05T22:04:00.004-07:00

I threw a baby shower for my dear sister-in-law Elisa. It turned out pretty cute, I guess.

What would a baby shower that I pretty much totally planned on Pinterest be without a few chalk boards?

We had mad libs cards that everyone filled out with advice for the new mommy.

The food turned out deliciously. Lots of family members made the food happen, and it was gobbled up promptly.

The Menu:

Turkey Special Sandwiches

Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Filling

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Filling

My Moms Amazing Cheeseball

Artichoke and Spinach Dip with chips and baguettes

If you could not tell, the shower was bird themed. The table was also decorated with tender pictures of baby Charlie I took the day before the baby shower.

By the by, Elisa made this cupcake stand! It turned out beautifully, don't you think?

We had a yummy apple cider punch.

I asked Cody to put the cups out for easy access. Cody got creative.

This shin-dig took lots of work but it was sooo good plan it out as much as I did, otherwise things would have been a mess. And the lovely new momma enjoyed it, I think. And that is what makes it count the most!

Thanks so so so much to every single person who helped make this partay happen! And Congrats to Elisa and Kevin!

I'm cropping a lot of people out of these photos.

2011-11-01T11:12:00.008-06:00

Yesterday was one of the best days of the year. Halloween. I got up at 6:30 am which is not a time I want to see anything other than the inside of my eyelids. But there was much preparation that needed to be done to get ready for work on this creepy and wonderful day. 3 hours of make-up application later, I looked like this:

This is my manager and me at work. We are a team so we dressed up in coordinating Dia de los Muertos costumes. I wanted to look like the work of Sylvia Ji, but with less skin showing. The costumes turned out great and I even won a $5.00 gift card to Judd's (a place by my workplace with yummy soup) for my costume.

The makeup turned out better than I could have hoped for. And my skeleton lady cameo necklace that I ordered from Etsy showed up on Saturday, just in time. Phew!

The dressed up Learnkey folks went on the annual parade around the area of Main Street and took lots of good photos.

Then we made our way over to the park carousel and the lady let us ride it! It was so much fun, as you can see I was quite gleeful.

Oh man. Halloween is the best. I sometimes wish everyday could be this way so that I can just go to the grocery store, or drive down the street, and pass people in the most ridiculous get-ups and it is considered acceptable. I guess that is what Wal-Mart is for though. And since I am a lover of the macabre, I just can't get enough creepy spooky talk. I love to hear stories about who saw what ghost or heard what place is haunted. And this is the day that people talk about it! I get to hear about the stories of the LearnKey basement and be frightened whenever I have to go down there to the bathroom! Yay!

Hope you had a very scary Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T10:48:00.009-06:00

Here are some lovely shots of my front porch this year. These pumpkins are all from my very own patch. We got lots of cool ones!

Here are some not so great shots of my kitchen table. I am still having to use my cell phone for my photography needs.

This is a chemistry set filled with fall leaves.

Fall Throw Pillows

2011-10-05T12:15:00.007-06:00

These pictures are really crappy. I apologize for that, the only pictures I can put on my blog are from my phone.

These are the throw pillows that I have finished so far. They are my first real project on my sewing machine that I got for Christmas. All I have used it for so far is sewing up my moxie owl packages and making a couple of bean bags for my Sunday school class.

I finally remade the cat pillows after losing the originals to a tragic explosive pumpkin-mold incident:

I think they turned out even better than the first set! Although I should have looked at the old picture before making these because I like the old version of the whiskers better.

These are my scrappy leaf autumn pillows. I got the idea off of pinterest. They took forever to make because of all the individual leaf sewing but it was so worth it!

Hopefully I will get a new laptop someday and I will be able to post real photos of everything awesome that has been going on.

Oh yes, Cody made me a giant amazing beautiful chalk board. Here is a picture of it!

He made it out of a big sheet of metal sprayed with chalkboard paint. And of coarse he made the magnificent frame himself. Cody is pretty much the bomb.

Not that I have anything against Costco or their cake

2011-09-27T09:00:00.005-06:00

The baby shower is looming. There is so, SO much to do for this. Per usual, I am making it a lot harder than it needs to be because of my “vision.” I have so many decorations to make and I still need to test out a bunch of recipes for the food I will be making. I am both excited and nervous. My family has been giving me quite a hard time because I can’t just do what they have always done with baby showers and bring some cake from Costco, throw down some paper plates, and have a few members of the family come over to sit and chat for a while. I’m sorry, but no. Not going to happen.

I have been told that it is just a generational thing, that people in this neck of the woods just do things easy peasy lemon squeezey and don’t need their parties and gatherings to quote “look like a magazine.” That younger people like me must do things like quote “Paris Hilton.” Now this particular explanation both offended and confused me because quite frankly, I do not appreciate Paris Hilton or her work, nor do I see what she has to do with my wanting to throw a pretty baby shower. And if she did throw a baby shower, I can guarantee it would not be my brand of pretty.

I asked my sister what she meant by this and she said she was really just trying to come up with someone “hip and cool” to use as an example. I informed her that I didn’t agree with her idea of who we young people think is cool.

Aimee: I don’t know who you people like. Hanna Montana? iCarly? Justin Beiber?

Me: Are you aware that I’m not 12? I think when you are trying to find someone "cool" for me to relate to, you shouldn’t use your new found love of the Disney Channel as your frame of reference.

Aimee: I apologize that I like iCarly! iCarly is funny!

Riiight.

And she meant it. Haha. Oh Aimee, you are my little ~~gentleman~~ gentlewoman. ?.

I do understand that different people choose to use their time in different ways. I am a person who enjoys doing things all the way, and making them the way I see it in my head. Not to toot my own horn, but this is how my brain works. It thinks up beautiful pictures and I have the ability to make them come to life. I think that this was a gift that I was blessed with, and I should use it, not hide it under a bushel, whatever that is.

So what is so wrong with wanting to throw this shindig properly?? And this is not a rhetorical question, please; if you can see why I should be condemned for such a thing as wanting an aesthetically pleasing spread with cohesive serve-ware, please enlighten me. Things CAN, despite what I have been told, be made to look like “a magazine” with very little money. Or at least close. I have done it many times and I will continue to do so whether people agree or not. I have not asked for anyone’s help, I am doing this myself, so who am I hurting?

All I am asking is that the awesomeness that I am creating is appreciated. Just a little. Is that really so hard? No, I submit that it is not.

My Computer Blew Up

2011-09-26T09:50:00.004-06:00

Hello, there. I have been wanting to post so many things but a few months ago my laptop took its last breath. She was getting old and it was bound to happen, but I had no idea it would be such a final death. Cody was working on it and it started to make funny noises and smell like something was burning. The next time I tried using it, it literally began to smoke. I could still use it but it would randomly shut off, and shoot blue sparks when I tried to adjust the power cord. But now it won’t even entertain the idea of turning on. Very sad. And saving up for a new one is proving to be a lot harder than we thought.

Cody does have a computer, but it may as well be a plank of wood with a mouse plugged into it because that’s about as useful as it is.

So that is why I have been absent. I do not like posting anything without photos, and I obviously have no way of getting pictures off of my camera anymore. But I finally gave in and decided to post a picture-less post.

My favorite time of year is almost here! My pumpkins are growing big and orange and the decorating fever has pretty much completely taken over my mind. My poor husband has been recruited for many projects that he doesn’t particularly want to do and I have committed myself to making a ridiculous amount of autumn-themed throw pillows. As in about 15 pillows. Who even does that? That is a lot of pillows for one little person to make.

I have been working full time which is such a blessing. I have so much less time now, though! I am getting a little overwhelmed with everything I want to get done over the next couple months. Sewing enough throw pillows to build a very large and impressive pillow fort, decorating for fall (a very daunting task at my house) and the big one, planning out the baby shower I am throwing for my sister-in-law. And usually by this time of year, I have a pretty good list of the Christmas gifts I want to get for everyone. Haven't even started. I feel like such a failure!

We are also trying to go to Disneyland in October and we have just been putting off paying for it over and over again. I am getting bigger pay checks but have just as little money as before. How does that happen? But we have to go! We have put it off for 2 years and I have already prepared a California themed playlist to listen to on the way there. So it's really not even a choice at this point.

Good Morning, Garden!

2011-07-22T14:21:00.002-06:00

My backyard in the morning.

Here is a pumpkin that looks more like a watermelon.

Here is the pumpkin that grew first. He is the biggest. Still about the size of a large onion.
I don't remember what kinds these are, as they grew all over each other, but I have about 10 different species in here.

I was so worried that the bee's wouldn't find my pumpkins (if they didn't, that would mean the fruit would wither up and die) so I went to the nursery and bought a plant that attracts bees. When I got home and went to plant it, the bees were already there. They love these big flowers.

There is a whole world under the big leaves full of green light.

There's a baby pumpkin! The thing hanging off of it is a female flower.

These little curly vines grab onto everything they can find, even the weeds.

Goodnight, Garden

2011-07-22T12:01:00.005-06:00

Shots from my backyard, taken at dusk.

My monstrous pumpkins, enjoying the break from the sun that makes their leaves wither in its heat.

The flowers on the pumpkins curl up at night.

The creeping vines are beginning to take over the lawn. They grow so fast, it seems like they are half a foot farther along every day. I could probably see them moving if I watched long enough. See the tiny pumpkin under the vines? This little dude makes me happy.

Funnel Spider

Goodnight, garden.

The Anniversary

2011-07-07T23:29:00.003-06:00

It has been 3 whole years since the Mr. and I got hitched. We have been together for almost 8 years, and the other day I realized I have known him for TEN years! This is just unreal to me. It has been 10 whole years since I spotted him sitting in the front row of science class, with his red high top shoes. Ten years since I sat next to him and tried to dazzle him with my amazing taste in music, {Slipknot and Weezer} 10 years since we wrote notes to one other, admitting very shyly our crushes we had on each other.

And it really doesn't seem like it's been that long since we were 16, just driving around in his van, eating lunch together at Taco Bell every day, laying on the grass at the park, SO in love, so sure we would get married, have babies, and grow old together and we just could not wait for those things to happen.

8 years later, I am still just as in love with Cody Black, I still miss him when he leaves my side, I still get so happy when he gets home from work and I can find my place in his arms again. I hope this never changes. I hope we only fall more in love with each other and are always able to laugh and play and cuddle, and show our appropriate pda, until we are old and wrinkly and using walkers with tennis balls on the feet. We will still call each other sweetheart and hold hands and take slow walks in the park. Then I will write a book about our love and Cody can read it to me and we can die in our sleep together. That's the goal I have in mind, anyway. :)

Anyway, we had such an amazing, happy anniversary. I decorated our gazebo with rose petals, candles, and twinkle lights. We got all dressed up in separate rooms and then met each other outside with our wrapped gifts. We ate nachos (the food we had every single day on our honeymoon) and cream soda in glass bottles (we used to drink that back in middle/high school at lunch time) and watched a slide show I made of pictures of our wedding accompanied by music playing from our reception. It was dreamy.

We didn't talk any business, nothing about chores that needed to get done, or bills or anything too marriagey. It was just like we were on a date, on our best behavior. It was lovely.

Then we opened presents!

Cody got new hiking boots made of some type of fancy water proof leather (I am still sticking to the traditional anniversary gifts and 3 years is leather) and guitar pick necklace that says "So Happy I Picked You" on one side and "Happy 3 years Cody" on the other side. He also got a card that says "If I had a big enough needle, I would sew us together while you were sleeping so that when you woke up, we would be like one person. One big happy deformed person." I'm not lying, that's what it said. I bought it like that. I thought it was pretty awesome but Cody seemed oddly disturbed.

I got an absolutely adorable purse that I had told Cody about a couple weeks prior, not thinking he was even listening, and inside was an awesome handmade card and TICKETS to see my very favoritest band ever DEFTONES the next weekend!! I was so flipping excited.

Afterwards we cuddled in the hammock and just talked until it got dark. Cody told me all about the plans he made for us for the next weekend. It was such a happy night. That's the best word I can think of to describe what I felt that night. Happy. I don't think I've had a more happy night for quite a while.

Memorial Weekend

2011-06-04T11:24:00.001-06:00

My cute brother, his cute wifey, and cute son came to visit us this weekend. We had crazy fun and many inside jokes were created. Saturday we had a pirate day and went to the pirate pizza place, then saw Pirates 4. Sunday we went to Zion's as they had never been, and that night we had a BBQ and some backyard fire pit time.

We had a park ranger take a photo of us. He counted to 3 and right on 3 we made this overwhelmingly attractive face. We think we're funny.

My 23rd Birthday Adventure

2011-06-02T13:21:00.005-06:00

Last, last Friday was my birthday and cute Cody took me camping up in Zion Canyon. We went on a hike, ate at my favorite Springdale restaurant, Oscar's, survived the rapture, and got to sleep in our cozy new tent for reals this time (not just in our back yard).

This trail was pretty awesome, and we definitely felt it the next day.

Lots of yummy camping food!

Of course I took this opportunity to take some night photos.

These were all taken right outside our tent with varying long exposures.

We had a great time! Oh yes, and Cody got me lots of cute gifts like bear rug coasters, cookbooks, the Pioneer Woman novel, and other lovely little goodies. He also built me a beautiful coffee table which I LOVE. Points for Cody!

2 Peas in a Pod

2011-06-01T00:11:00.004-06:00

My cute sister-in-law is preggers with twins. I decided to get crafty and make her a necklace.

It didn't turn out perfect, but pretty good for my first time with this technique, and I like it's imperfections, anyway.

Life, Lately

2011-05-31T23:52:00.003-06:00

Things are getting busy in the Black home. Moxie sales have picked up a bit and Cody started his summer semester today. We are really really NOT excited about this because he has hard crappy classes that he will be studying for all the time, and he has to be to work at 3am every morning which means most of his free time will consist of sleep. So to sum up, I won't be seeing much of him for the next couple months, and it blows.

I know that he has to do it for our family's future, and he works so hard for us. He wants to be home as much as I want him home, and I am blessed to have such a hard working, good man for my husband. Remembering this and trying not to be frustrated because I just miss the crap out of him is something I'm working on every day.

Enough complaining, lately I have been spending lots of time in the craft room gluing feathers together and such to make clips, and we started our first vegetable garden.

We have yummy little strawberries that are always getting nibbled on by garden pests.

And Cody built me a drip system for my tomatoes and jalapenos which have tiny little green baby tomatoes and jalapenos growing on them already.

As usual, Reagan must be right smack in the middle of whatever I'm working on.

I just love her and her little cat thumbs!

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-07T01:02:00.011-06:00

May is already here and Mother's Day has got me thinking about that lady who birthed me 23 years ago. She is one awesome woman. I know a side of my mother that not many get to see. People who do not know her well get to see her floopy side (floopy? I don't know...) They describe her as many things, most of all free-spirited. Though she is quite the free spirit, I want you to know how far off this version of her is.

The mom that I get to see is amazing. She is so smart, talented and loving, and see's the best in people. She is so forgiving of anyone who has ever wronged her. The woman cannot hold a grudge. She has always taken such good care of me and has always been there for me. She has taught me to be (or at least tried her best to get me to be) strong, self sufficient, open minded, to not see fault in others, and to be myself and express myself the way I need to, among so much more.

She is a brave warrior woman. There was never a creepy critter too big to vacuum up or catch with a tissue. She always showed me bugs and lizards and snakes in our yard when I was growing up. We would search for "night crawlers" with our flashlights. One night when I was very young, she even woke me up to show me a newt she found. She is never grossed out by anything I tell her, she doesn't shy away from scary unknown kitchen mold species like I would, she just cleans it up without hesitating.

She has passed on her love of art to me. Her father was a painter and now she is the most amazing artist. Her house and her loved ones houses are filled with her beautiful paintings and drawings.

She loves to sing and is an gifted decorator and gardener. She never stops moving, she is constantly finding things that need to be done. She never stops working, and she never stops enjoying life. She is always trying to better herself. She has taught me to love every animal on this earth. She loves her horses like they were her own children. She has a hard time saying no whenever we go to the animal shelter. She was always willing to let me take care of various pets. Throughout my childhood we had a turtle, a bunny, parakeets, a snake, frogs, so many cats, and a lot of beta fish. She is an adventurer. Many afternoons were spent hiking in the mountains with her in the summer, and sleigh riding in the mountains in the winter. Many evenings were spent riding in my seat on the back of her bike. She showed me the beautiful world that God has given us.

She has done so much with her life as well. Along with being a great mother and being married to Brett Garn, in her life she has been a secretary, a lumberjack, a semi truck driver, a tupperware factory worker, a cleaning lady, flown planes, traveled the world, been a catalog model, a loving caregiver to lots of old people, and so much more I can't think of right now, all while looking fab, I might add.

I'm sorry for rambling but I am filled with so much gratitude for this lady. I am blessed to have her. She is awesome. She gave me THE BEST childhood ever and is now my bff. I love her! When I am a mother someday, I hope I can be the brave mama bear to my kids that she is to me.

Here she is striking a fierce pose in October 2010.

My mom and HER mom (moms!) about 1989-ish.

Backyardigans

2011-04-27T21:23:00.006-06:00

Last weekend we really wanted to go camping. None of the camping sites around here are open yet though, and would be way too cold anyway. Down here in St Geezy it is already in the mid 80's. So we decided to camp in our backyard. We built a fire pit in place of a tree that was removed, and set up camp!

Roasting a couple of weenies.

Here are a couple more weenies!

Then it got dark. I have been really wanting to try out some long exposure night photography. This was my first attempt. Even though they did not turn out to be the greatest photo's EVER, I am still so excited about them.

Now the cool thing about this type of photography is all of the things that the camera captures that you cannot see. So when I was setting up these photos, I couldn't see most of what you see in the photographs. Looking though the view finder I could see pretty much just the fire, and Cody's legs, and the top arch of the tent. When the photo was done processing, so much more appeared, you can now see the trees, the tent, everything.

This one of us is my favorite. The light in the background made the trees glow BRIGHT green, And the sky is awesome.

Then it was time to try star trails. It turned out really grainy and there is a lot of noise and atmospheric light in the photo, and I wanted the stars to turn out brighter, but it was good enough for my first attempt. This is about a 17 minute exposure.

When it gets warmer I will be spending a lot of time up at my parents house in the middle of the night attempting to capture star trails as you can see billions of stars up there in nowhere-ville. And whenever we go camping, Cody will be sleeping and I will be outside taking pictures. (Pretty much a summary of our lives, haha)

These Days...

2011-04-27T21:12:00.006-06:00

Here are some photos from around my house.

I felt like my dining area needed a bit more Spring-ness. These bottles are mostly from my grandmother's collection. This was a very low cost decoration. I had the bottles already, all I needed were some flowers from Michael's (on sale, of course) And the jars with candles idea I got from Pottery Barn. I just bought the jars and candles from DI and the moss and rocks from the dollar store. Totally cheap and looks great.

The yellow chairs were a DI find. They were ugly white and natural oak and we made them yellow with red showing through the distressed effect we did. Everyone who sees them says something about how when you spend time and work on refurbishing furniture, you want it to look nice and new, not weathered. But I really love how they turned out. So much better than our scary 1970's vinyl ones.

Wood.

2011-04-27T20:32:00.004-06:00

Our yard is a menace. So we had a ton of dead branches cut off of our trees (we have over 50 trees in our yard. I tried to count them once and I lost track) and some trees and stumps removed. And so, we were left with lots and lots of wood! Sadly, for Cody, they only cut the trees into very short pieces, so he can't make furniture out of them or anything, but we do have a TON of firewood now. And our yard now smells like fresh wood. It is heavenly. Sort of like Christmas mixed with camping. Cody has been fulfilling his destiny to become a lumberjack and chopping the wood just for fun.

I wasn't actually doing any real lumberjacking. Just wearing this cool hat and looking like a tough wood cutting person. Also, from this I got a lot of sap on the seat of my pants. Cody is doing his "Hey, I'm a lumberjack" face.

Messing with the Macro

2011-04-27T20:10:00.006-06:00

This weekend a lot of our roses bloomed. We have the greatest roses in our yard. I noticed that we have a lot of aphids though, so we bought a container of lady bugs to take care of the problem. I didn't want to buy poison because A.) It kills the bad bugs and the good bugs and B.) It was a lot more expensive. Also, ladybugs are simply cuter. The container supposedly had 1500 bugs in it.
We followed the instructions, releasing them after dark and after watering the area. They all just kind of... fell to the ground. This was back on Friday. Those dang bugs are still sitting on the ground, crawling around in the dirt and leaves. It's like the were born in their little container and are just used to crawling around under their little wood shavings. We even spent a lot of time putting some of them onto the leaves and rose buds, and they would either just sit their like they were stuck, or they would crawl around and fall off. Stupid bugs.

Last week I noticed a very big ugly spider on our back porch. He wasn't hurting anything, but then I took this picture and tried to research what he was. The closest thing I could find was a Hobo Spider, and those are really poisonous, so we decided to kill him. I always feel really bad when we have to kill stuff (see mole and scorpion), even if they are pests. We sprayed him and I felt so bad for making him suffer! He was dang ugly and had HUGE black fangs, but he can still feel pain. Haha, anyway, here he is.

Babies Babies Babies

2011-04-10T22:51:00.008-06:00

I am usually trying to get the Husband to agree to having children immediately. I'm always looking out for cute little curiosities that I cannot pass up because they will look just so magnificent in my future child's room. But there are moments in between those times when I am thinking about something non-infant related.

But lately my brain has been inundated by baby fever. (Gosh dang it. Now I have that Hanukkah Fever song from The Soup permanently stuck in my head!) My sister just had a little boy, and I recently found out that my freaking awesome sister-in-law is preggers. She and my brother have been attempting the stressful and not fun process of in vitro for quite a while and we have been praying like mad for them to have a baby, so this is very happy blessing. I am SO excited for them!

So because of all of this baby mania, Mr. Black and I have been discussing it pretty seriously. I am obviously good to go on the whole thing. He however, being the careful and responsible and dang cute individual that he is, wants to plan out all the details. It seems he would like for us to go to some kind of family planner who can tell us "how to get all of our ducks in a row" before attempting parenthood. As in spiritually, financially, health-wise, insurance-wise. Does anyone know how we can do this? Someone we can talk to or a book we can read or your own personal advice? Anything would be helpful as we are clueless in the ways of baby.

For now I am trying to figure out what to get Brother and Sister-in-Law for their tiny baby. I know it may seem early to some, but I started planning next Christmas's gifts in January. I am a gift giver. I LOVE planning out, shopping for, making, and wrapping presents for people. As soon as someone gets engaged, or knocked up, or put on my family Christmas rotation list, or pretty much ANYTHING else, I am thinking about what to get them. I just love it. So what to get them? I really really want to make them something.

Here is a onesie that I made my cute friend Randi for her baby whom she named Jude. (They are Beatles fans and also, awesome.)

So what shall I make them? (Hint, hint, Elisa, I know you're months and months away from giving birth, but I'm going to need you to come up with baby nursery decorating ideas so I know what to do!)

I found a baby mobile at the thrift store months ago that had little bears on it. I bought it to see if I could baby (oh my heck, I mean MAYBE. See what I mean? Wow. I am THAT bad!) make something cute out of it and sell it on Moxie Owl. I have been trying to come up with a creative idea of what to make it into. I was thinking of hanging felt owls or woodland creatures, or rain clouds on it. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Today I thought of just the thing though! I will be working on it this week and hopefully it will turn out to be the cutest mobile ever, and then I will just have to keep it. Or it could be a disaster. I will share the results soon.

P.S. I am no longer "obese" according to the BMI calculator. Just over weight! Woohoo!

Right Now and a Little of Back Then

2011-03-30T21:26:00.002-06:00

Hello! I hope you all had a good weekend/first half of your week! Last weekend was so nice for me. On Friday I dyed my red tips purple! (Lust Lavender, actually.) It's pretty hot.

We went to a kinda weird movie. Sucker Punch. I REALLY did not want to see this movie when I first saw the previews. I was thinking "Wow... stripper teenagers fighting giant samurais and nazi's with swords? What?" but Cody expressed his slight interest and I thought Ok, it can't be too terrible, the action-y parts look interesting. And yeah, it was just ok and kind of confusing. If you do see it though, the pimped out mayor is my fav part.

I also played a lot of hackie sack. I'm getting pretty good at it and it gives Mr. Black and I an activity to do outside together.

ANYWAY! Gosh. I have been trying to lose weight. I am "obese" according to the BMI calculator, and have "lost my face" among various other things according to my dear mother. So hopefully I can stick to my plan of eating nutrisystem food and exercise (EW) everyday. My family is having a competition to see who can lose the most weight before June. I am losing pretty bad right now, but it's only the first week. It is good motivation and cool to have a bunch of my family all trying to be healthy as well.

Nutrisystem is really nice. The food I've had so far is really good, just tiny portions. WAY better than HCG. I'm hoping to lose a pretty sizable amount of my body. I want to be AT LEAST what I weighed in 10th grade. Even back then though, actually, pretty much since 6th grade-ish, I have not been at all happy with my size. Haha, not saying I'm going for my 5th grade weight or anything, I just want to feel better about myself, which means losing at least 40 lbs and getting a bit toned. And then staying that way. That's the part that really scares me. All I know is eating what I want, which includes a ridiculous amount of pizza, like, all the time. So after nutrisystem isn't there telling me what to eat, what do I do? I don't really know.

Here is a size that I would be happy being again. This is prom with Cody. Oh there's my face! I found it.

Photo Shoot

2011-03-30T21:17:00.003-06:00

I got to take some family photos of our friends, The Hernandez's. They have such a cute and good baby! We were taking photos for quite a while and she barely even fussed. Cody was quite tired from jumping up and down and making silly sounds behind me, trying to get her to smile. He is a trooper. The pictures turned out pretty good in my opinion but I definitely have a lot more learning to do.

12:04 AM

2011-02-16T00:04:00.007-07:00

Last week I visited my sister Aimee in California. She is about to pop out a baby boy (so excited!) She has two tiny precious busy little girls, and her hubby was out of town for the week So I went down to help her out. She just moved to Riverside. I had never been there. They live on a pretty cool property with cute little places to walk, and orange groves, and a lemon tree. California is my very favorite. I would never abandon my Utah but every time I go to California I realize how deprived of vegetation we are. I want a lemon tree!
This is the first time I have every driven anywhere like that by myself. 6 hours in a car alone with myself is a long time and I am terrified of driving in unfamiliar places. I left home at 2:30 in the morning so as to miss all traffic and it was nice, just me and a few other cars out there in the desert. I was seriously thinking it was a very probable possibility that I would somehow end up dead on my way there. The scenarios that went through my mind include getting run over by a semi, death by decapitation. Needing to pee so bad that I'm forced to stop at a seemingly empty rest-stop, killer is waiting in stall next to mine, death by decapitation. Etc, most ending with losing my head for some reason. Needless to say I am a bit of a worrier. I've accepted this, I'm okay with it, and I just have to remind myself that things always turn out fine. And they did. I made it there with my head and only had a couple of terrifying moments. I did really really need to pee so I got off on some exit south of Vegas and totally got lost, ended up giving up and trying to get back to the freeway, and accidentally turning sooner than my GPS was telling me and driving onto a road with "WRONG WAY DO NOT ENTER" signs all over it. Thankfully it was empty and I found my way to the right road. Phew! Pretty much almost a decapitation!

Before, I pretty much would not drive anywhere but Saint George. Now that I have done this, I feel like a bit more of a woman and I don't have to be afraid anymore. Maybe.

Here are some pictures I took when we went on a walk by Aimee's house.

Aivree.

Aria.

Pretty Pregnant Aimee.

Under the pepper tree. Did you know black pepper comes from trees? I didn't. They looked like little pink berries. But they smelled like pepper! Amazing.

I had so much fun just hanging out with my sister. I haven't done that in a long time since we both got married. We spent most of the time playing with the kids, making owls for Moxie Owl and reading Do Not Reply emails. And trying to induce labor which totally didn't work. Does spicy food ever work for anyone? I think it's a myth. Now I am back and I miss them so much!

2011-01-24T10:20:00.004-07:00

Hello.

This weekend my niece Justine came down from Salt Lake and visited me a bit. She is a very cute girl with an awesome smile so I put her in front of my camera. She is a natural model. I love how they turned out. Isn't she cute?

This weekend we took a couple hikes, went to the dog park, and took a drive to the mountains which, as it turns out, are closed for winter. Not cool. We had all the cameras and film ready and everything and we got all the way to Pine Valley mountain and the gate was closed. We still had fun though, and drove around to pick out our favorite cabin.

Hope you all had a good weekend too!

Happy Weekend

2011-01-16T18:17:00.004-07:00

This weekend has been so lovely. We got to just be lazy and happy together. We started out on Friday with a really good show at a local gallery/venue. Cody almost convinced me to just sit at home and be the anti-social hermits that we are. But I am so glad we went. We saw old friends and listened to such great music. I forget how much I like small, intimate shows where you don't have to fight people just to stay standing. You can just relax and get lost in the bands little world of music. I don't know how those musicians go up there and do that. Singing the words they wrote for all to hear. Sitting on a stage in a dark room where everyone can just stare at you and scrutinize your looks and talent, or just ignore you and talk over your music. It has got to take serious courage.
After the show we went bowling. We got home at midnight-ish which is pretty much unheard of as Cody's usual bedtime is 8:30. (He gets up at 1am to go to work every day and doesn't get home til 6:30 at night.) So I was lucky to get this much out of him.
Yesterday we slept in til noon and pretty much didn't leave the couch all day. We just watched movies and Dexter season 5. (thanks Elisa!)
Today was so nice. I can't believe it's so warm in the middle of January. We took Lulu on a walk, came home and there were a thousand birds outside our house making so much noise. It makes me get spring fever, but of coarse that is silly since our springs last a week and then it's on to feeling like you're on fire. Anyway, I wanted to listen to the birds so we got out the hammock and a blanket and listened to them til dark. It was a good day.

By the way. Vast amounts of geese have been flying over this area for a week or so. From early morning to evening. They are flying west-ish in the middle of January. I don't remember them doing this last year. Does anyone know if this is normal? Is it part of this M-Night-Shyamalan-style, birds-and-fish-dying-for-unknown-reasons phenomenon?
Yep. Tiny bits of snow are still on the ground from the STG snow storm, and geese are flying strangely. The end is near!

I had Cody take some pictures of my new hair and it turned into this silly photo shoot. Oh yeah, and Cody cut all his hair off and shaved his beard so here are pictures of him!

Ghost Towns and Mine Shafts

2011-01-11T17:14:00.008-07:00

My second parents (Craig and Jeanie) whom I met when I was in Young Women's took Cody and I to some Mine Shafts a few months ago. They are CRAZY and actually go into closed off abandoned mine shafts and poke around. This sounded nuts to me (which it IS) but we went anyway. I didn't even know this but there are hundreds of them all around us in Utah and Nevada. We went to some called the Jack Rabbit Mines.
We went to one where you walk waaay back into the mountain and then come into this HUGE room with loooong latters going every which way and bats on the ceiling. There was a shoot that went so far down, our flashlights couldn't see that far so Craig just grabbed a small boulder and threw it down. The noise of it falling just went on and on. There was a latter next to the shoot that went down with it. It was so creepy how far it went down (of coarse Craig and Jeanie went down it on their next trip without us, they are crazy. they found repelling equipment at the bottom) The mines were so creepy and I thought we were going to die the whole time but I am now hooked.

On our way we stopped at a couple abandoned buildings that used to be a hotel/general store in at an old train stop. I took lots of pictures for you to see!

Outside of the Hotel

Inside the general store area the ceiling had caved in.

A creepy hallway under the creepy cave in that led to some reeally creepy dark stairs that went down to a creepy basement which we did go into. It was creepy down there!

Upstairs in the hallway next to the freaky caved in room.

Here is a piece of a door by a window. There were just pieces of things everywhere. Drawers, beds, shutters. It was so cool to see things that were used 140 years ago just abandoned.

Someone propped some old box springs against the front window to prevent intruders. (teehee)

Shelves in the general store.

A bedroom.

Here is the building next door. We don't know what it used to be but there were hooks all over the ceiling.

After the mines they took us to these "ovens" where they used to bake pottery? Something like that.

Man, I want to go again!

Snow Day

2011-01-11T16:55:00.005-07:00

Ok I know this was days and days ago, sorry. But it SNOWED in STG which is just complete madness. Surely THIS is a sign that the world is coming to its end. Here is my documentation of the event.

Christmas with The Blacks

2011-01-11T16:12:00.001-07:00

Christmas Morn'

So very excited!

Cody did very good this year. As you can see, he made me a four poster bed out of solid rustic cherry to match last years present. It is absolutely gorgeous. It is massive and I don't know how we are ever going to fit it in our future apt when we have to move away. I mean, the room we have now is a decent size and this bed makes it look tiny. I run into it all the time. But I looove it! I close the curtains sometimes and it feels magical.

Family Wall

2011-01-11T16:10:00.000-07:00

I recently (2 months ago) made a family photo wall by our kitchen. I just love how it turned out!

First Things First

2011-01-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

Hello little blog. I have been neglecting you. I just now uploaded my pictures from my camera that have been in there since October. I have catching up to do so I apologize for the major picture overload I am about to subject you to.

First of all.

Meet Reagan.

She is the newest member of our family. We got her from the shelter in October. She is a tortoise shell and about 2 to 4 years old. She caught my attention because she has thumbs, so it looks like she's wearing mittens. We named her Reagan because it was October and we wanted something creepy. Reagan was the name of the little girl in The Exorcist.
Reagan is a very strange cat. As I typed that, she fell off the couch and got stuck behind it. I don't really know how to describe how she is strange. She just is. If she were a "Friend" she would be Phoebe. She loves to cuddle. She gets in the weirdest positions while cuddling. She will fall asleep with her head in my hand or on my chin. Lulu has lost weight since Reagan joined us because they run and play together hardcore. Lulu has battle scars but she still eggs Reagan on to play.
And that's my new daughter. I am keeping her inside at all times so she does not disappear like Olive. Although she has escaped several times. And when Reagan goes, she is gone. She just books it. Which is why she was a stray cat I'm thinking.

Broomstick Parking Only

2010-10-13T18:26:00.000-06:00

Here is my witchy front porch. These broomsticks are made completely for free from branches from my yard and ancient twine from my grandpa's woodshop.

Haha, get it....toad? hahahaha.

H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N-!

2010-10-08T11:36:00.001-06:00

Ohmyheck.

2010-10-08T11:17:00.001-06:00

I know most of my posts are about creatures in my yard, but guys, my house is seriously like a freakin' wildlife refuge or something. My worst bug related fear happened a short time ago. I have had more than one nightmare about these things in the past. I like bugs, when I was little I collected them in jars every day of the summer. I wanted to be an insectologist. They may give me a scare when they suddenly appear while I'm gardening, but then I see that it's just a bug and I move on, but this is the bug I am really afraid of. And it was in my house! It was a Scorpion. Granted, it was a very wee scorpion, but that didn't stop me from running to Cody, waking him up from the dead of sleep, and standing on a chair squealing in the next room watching Cody scoot it into a cup. Bleh.

I wanted it to be gone, for good, but I hate killing things. Just the thought of them crunching to death under a shoe gives me the heebies. That is why my yard has millions of snails. So....I decided to be a big girl, I actually HELD the cup the scorpion was INSIDE of and....walked it down to the end of my street (with a flashlight on it the entire time so I knew it was still in there) and threw it far, far into an empty lot. Yeah, I'm a dork.

Love you, Olive.

2010-10-05T01:14:00.000-06:00

I lost my baby girl this week. She is very important to me and I am finding it very tough to deal with. I forgot how hard it is losing an animal that belongs to me and I belong to it.

Olive was such a good cat. She came running whenever I called her, she knew to never use her claws and teeth when playing with me and she was such a little love.

This really sucks.

Some might think that she is only an animal but she was my baby. My first "child" as an independent woman. I got her when I moved out of the folks house and she has been my partner ever since. I had plans for us. Silly but true. She was supposed to be my kids kitty and live til she was very old and wise.

I may sound like a crazy cat lady, but that's ok.
It's probably true. haha.

The worst part is not knowing what happened to her. I have lots of creative ideas that won't stop running through my mind, though. awesome. I'm sorry to go on about my cat like this. It's just so weird not having her around. Everywhere I look I see something Olive or cat related.
Oh man, this hurts.

Ok I'll stop.

I miss you Olly.

My birthday was in May...

2010-08-04T14:32:00.000-06:00

And I'm just now setting up this beautiful b-day gift Cody gave me. Cool, no?

It's a photo mobile and it holds 20 pictures. I thought it looked best with all b&w photos so it's taken me this long to gather 20 black and whites. It looks very cool in my sun room and the pictures move around when the a/c is on. I love it. Thanks babe!

I Just Died

2010-07-30T17:59:00.000-06:00

...For this photoshoot I found by Wildflower Photography. Why didn't I do this for my wedding photos? A.ma.za.ing.

Magic.

Ahh! What is in my tree?

2010-07-28T13:32:00.000-06:00

I was sitting on my couch when out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving in my apricot tree out back. I thought it was a squirrel. I got closer to the window, I thought it was a cat, I got closer, and found it was a fox! I ran and got the camera and went outside, he saw me and booked it, but I did get some great pictures. He sat on my brick wall and let me get really close! Until he saw my dog lulu come around the corner. He ran fast. He must have thought she was an overgrown mouse.

I felt bad for scaring him away. He must have been hungry to go after my green apricots. I left out a bowl of water for him but I don't think he will be back. Lulu-belle must be terrifying.

Phoot Phamily Photo

2010-06-18T11:07:00.000-06:00

Recently I took pictures of my sisters family's feet. Haha. It may sound strange, but I just love tiny little baby feet next to big giant daddy feet. So here they are.

Aria (9 months) and Adam (her dad)

Aivree (2 Years old) and Adam

The whole Family (Aria, Aivree, Aimee, and Adam)

Demons of the Lawn

2010-06-17T16:46:00.000-06:00

I have a yard from Hades.

It is so much work to keep it up, and my work is never ever ever done. I am not a fan of outdoor physical labor as I usually get physically ill after only an hour of it. My yard is so beautiful but I'm finding it hard to enjoy because everywhere I look I see millions of weeds, or some kind of pest problem, an overgrown lawn, apricots that need to be picked, hedges that need to be trimmed, bushes and bushes of roses that need clipping, trees that need pruning.

Oh, and did I mention the weeds? I pulled a couple the other day that were about a foot taller than I am. I spend hours and hours picking weeds, and a week later, they are back. They take over everything. I love this yard but I sure am overwhelmed by it. It's taking over my life!
Anyway, now there's yet another issue. There are holes and mounds of dirt in the lawn and gardens, a new one every week or more. We thought it was a gopher or something, but then, as I was clipping roses, I saw something furry in the lawn... It looked like a weird rat thing. Turns out it was a mole.

Mr. Mole. It looked like he lost his ear somehow. Poor dude.

Eating some grass while awaiting his sentencing.

We let our animals sniff at it to see what would happen. It bared its nasty long yellow 2 front teeth and threatened to take Olive down. It was pretty ugly. We caught it in a planter pot and decided we only had one choice. We had to poison it. We put the rodent poison in there and 5 hours later I began to have regrets. After all, they only eat gross bugs and worms, perhaps he was only trying to help our over populated yard. Awww. Poor little moley. But alas, it was too late. Little moley was dying.
We thought our holey lawn problem was solved, however, this mole must have had a family who is now seeking revenge by creating a massive underground tunnel system. Now I walk on my lawn and in places, I think I am going to fall through. It's kind of... spongey.
Anyway, operation poison-the-holes is under way. Those yellow tooth-ed demons are going down!

22 Candles

2010-06-08T19:19:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday to Me! Ok this is a couple weeks late. But I am now 22 and Cody gave me quite a magical birthday.

There was a tribute to 16 candles.

A candlelight dinner.

A delicious Barbie Fairytopia Cake

And a pretty new mexican embroidered boho dress, and a perfect little play teepee covered in lights and filled with cute presents. Coolest gift ever! I don't know what I'm going to do with it but it looks so cute in my sun room. Cody gets an A+.

Nature is a Cruel, Cruel Mistress...

2010-06-03T21:25:00.000-06:00

It's been forever since I did a blog post. I've been so dang busy working on my new boutique. I sit in front of a window over looking the backyard. Along with seeing Olive and Lulu wonder around out there, I see sooo much wildlife, it's crazy how much we have!

Sometimes it's pleasant. Just today I saw a little baby bunny hop in front of the window. Last week I saw a big toad in the same place. And there are tons of birds out there. But when Olive is involved it's usually not pleasant at all. Since moving here, she has become a wild hunter. She climbs trees and scales walls to get at birds. Last week she brought a bird into our bedroom and tore it apart. Bleh. Then today she chased in a BIG lizard. It ran behind some furniture and despite searching for an hour, I did not succeed in finding it. So there's a lizard in this house somewhere.

Anyway, every year a humming bird builds a nest on top of my hanging lantern on the patio. Now that I'm living here I decided to document it for my blog. We new she had eggs in there because every time we came outside she would hover around us and not leave us alone.

Here are the 2 tiny eggs.

Keeping her babies warm.

A couple of weeks later they hatched. Here they are just black things with little pokey feathers sprouting out.

As I said, everytime we would go out there she would have an attack thinking we were going to get her babies. It didn't help when I would open the window and stick my camera up there. Other than that we tried to leave her alone and not stress her out.

And then it happened. We went out of town, came back....and the babies were dead! It made me sick. One was upside down on top of the nest, and the other was on the ground. Mommy bird was not around. I came to the conclusion that mommy bird couldn't take the stress we were causing her, so she figured it would be better to just ...kill her babies and leave. It really does make me sick just typing this. Animals are weird. And I miss those little tiny beaks sticking out of the nest. Sad.

Happy 101 Award!

2010-04-23T12:36:00.000-06:00

I got an award today! Yay! Thanks Randi! So I get to feel special and list my 10 favorite blogs and 10 things that make me happy. I read a LOT of blogs so this will be hard.

And so...
The Award goes to....
A Beautiful Mess
Aura-Joon
The Dainty Squid
The Bloggess
Rockstar Diaries
Geninne's Art Blog
The Pioneer Woman
S.T. Lewis
Bluebird Vintage
Elisa+Kevin=Elevin

Most of those blogs are super popular and will never even know they won this amazing award. Haha. They are all written by absolutely magnificent people, though.

10 things that make me happy:

1. Cody. Codycodycodycodycody.
2. My pets. Lulu and Olive are humans to me!
3. My Family! They are so important to me. I don't know what I would do without my insane, verbose, loud, obnoxious, beautiful sisters and genius geeky cute brother.
4. Food. Eating is one of the best parts of living.
5. Homemaking. Decorating makes me so very joyous. Gardening is satisfying to the soul. And I'm not much of a cook, but I make a mean salsa.
6. Photography. When I see something, I can't help thinking how I could photograph it. It's constantly on the brain.
7. Good surprises.
8. Making stuff.
9. Summertime - Camping, barefeet, swimming in the ocean, heat. It makes me feel alive.
10. Disneyland.

White Board Art

2010-04-20T12:09:00.001-06:00

I drew this on a white board yesterday. No one better erase this masterpiece!

Wow. Just...wow.

2010-03-25T16:19:00.000-06:00

Today I am overwhelmed by Casey O'Connell's freaking amazing art. How did I not know about this girl? I need to buy one of her paintings. This one is my favorite.

Yeah. I just died.

Photographia

2010-03-17T22:56:00.000-06:00

Pictures I took today in my "sun room."

Bag Photo Tag

2010-03-17T22:25:00.000-06:00

I got tagged! (Thanks Randi) I am supposed to show yall what is going on in my giant purse of magnificence. Enjoy!

Items Include:
My Beautiful Purse bought from my fav store Forever 21
Ipod in green ipod sock
Headphones
Burts Bees chap stick and Lipsmackers Lip Gloss in Celestial Strawberry
Hair Ties
Vinnie's Tampon Case - the coolest kind of tampon case one can own. It features a little dude named Vinnie with "Tamp Case" tatood across his knuckles.
The book "Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies" It's a good read and has pictures too!
Sun Glasses
Keys
Phone
A Spoon (That has been in there for-e-ver. It has proven itself handy. You never know when you will need a spoon)
Extra Gum - Polar Ice
Peacock Compact Mirror
Hair Brush
Best Wallet Ever/ animal print checkbook
Random receipts and grocery lists

This was fun! I tag...whoever likes tags.

Robot Love

2010-03-15T22:10:00.000-06:00

Here are some robots we saw who must have also been on vacation.

California, I Miss You!

2010-03-15T21:59:00.000-06:00

For spring break Cody and I took a trip to Oceanside California to visit my sister, her husband, and their stinkin' cute kids. They now know me not as their aunt but the crazy woman with a camera attached to her face. Here they are, the older one is Aivree and the younger one is Aria. As you can see Mr. Black is cute. He has lost over 34 pounds on the diet he is doing. Go Cody!

Dreamy

2010-03-15T15:24:00.000-06:00

I found these photos on this girls blog. I guess they are all from some amazing tree house hotel. I absolutely have to stay in it now that I know it exists.

I swear I had a beautiful dream that I lived in the house in this top photo a few years ago. It was very weird to find a photo that looked almost just like my dream.

My Current Inspirations

2010-03-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

My favorite is when I find so many inspirations at once that I get overwhelmed with creativity. The problem is organizing all of my ideas into something coherent. Here are some of my current inspirations.

Terrariums and tiny fairy/gnome dwellings.

This Girl I found a lot of these pretty pictures on her blog. She is amazing.

THIS. I Die for this.

This

And This.

Fog

2010-02-27T21:10:00.000-07:00

Just a couple pictures I took on my way to work a little while ago.

Photo Tag

2010-02-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, So you must take a picture of the following. As is. No cleaning up. No make up. Etc. I had a lot of fun with this. (Thanks Randi!)

Favorite Room.

Recently Finished guest room is definitely my favorite room.

Bathroom. Laundry Room.

Favorite Pair of Shoes.

Self Portrait.

Refrigerator. Closet.

Kitchen Sink.

What your kid(s) are doing right now.

Looking out the window.

Not cooperating.

Looking out the window.

2010-02-24T23:14:00.000-07:00

This week both of my grandparents passed away. Not at the same time, but within 9 days of each other. I miss them so much. It's been a hard, emotional week. But I am happy that they got to go together and are now free of the pain and misery they have been enduring for the last several years. A few days before my grandma went, I went to visit her. She gave me her ring, a ring she had never taken off since I've known her. This meant so much to me. I feel like I have a piece of her with me now.

I am happy for them and I love them. I wrote this journal page about them where I attempted (key word) to draw my grandmothers hand holding mine during our last conversation.

The Birds Want Revenge!

2010-02-11T11:43:00.000-07:00

This morning I walked out to my car and got a lovely little surprise. The windshield was covered in SO MUCH bird poo. It was as if a gaggle of geese flying in a straight line all let go of their bird business at the same time. The poo was in a perfect line, starting at the top of the windshield, and running down. I mean just.... huge globbs of it. (sorry for the wording) I sprayed windshield wiper fluid for 30 seconds straight to try and remove it. It kind of worked, sort of. I was embarassed to drive to work. Anyway, a bird somewhere must hate me.

Also, yesterday, Cody was at work, he was about to shoot a tiny nail through a board and he somehow pulled the trigger too soon and it went straight through his finger, just below the finger nail. It missed the bone. He was wearing gloves and it stuck the glove to his hand. He just looked at it, pulled it out, (he described this much more colorfully than I care to) wrapped it up and kept working. Haha.

I am having a good day.

2010-02-10T15:26:00.001-07:00

Today is good. I finally found the camera I have been searching for that isn't going to devistate my bank account. I have been waiting for over a year to get it and I bought it today. Not only that, but I am starting my HCG diet today, which means I get to binge on my favorite foods for 3 days (hello, Blue Bunny ice cream, how do you do?) I spent my lunch eating a lunchable in my car and reading the 2nd book my new favorite book series "The Hunger Games." And this morning I peeked out my curtain to see thick fog. I have been waiting for an opportunity to take pictures of fog, so I grabbed my camera and on my way to work I pulled over and took one. So yeah, it is a good day in gina-land.

Side note: I am quite obsessed with terrariums and garden gnomes lately. I found these adorable necklaces on etsy that happen to feed into those exact obsessions.

Hi, I'm Gina, and I have an addiction.

2010-02-08T14:27:00.000-07:00

Decorating. It starts with a magazine, or looking at bhg.com and suddenly I can't get it out of my head. I. Must. Decorate. This weekend was meant to be spent finally putting our new home in order. Ha. I ended up shopping a lot at Lowe's Tai Pan, and a consignment store and spending waaay too much on cute home things. Being broke is worth my cute things though. We did get some actual productive work done though and now our bedroom and Cody's "Rock Room" (Guitar playing area) are done now and looking so good. Now that all my money is gone I have finally found the camera I have been dreaming of for 2 years at a really good price on ebay. (Photography, my other addiction) I feel a deep need to go into debt to buy it. I just might. Anyway, I can't get these lamps from Pottery Barn out of my head. They are flipping expensive. I need to find some cheap versions.

Happy Birthday Cody!

2010-02-04T21:21:00.000-07:00

Last Monday Cody turned older! We celebrated by going tubing in Brian Head on Saturday. On Monday Cody came home to a room of balloons, presents, and cake! We went to dinner at Pirate Island pizza and he somehow escaped getting sung to by pirate waiters.

Cody playing on his new birthday guitar.

My Christmas Present

2010-02-04T21:10:00.000-07:00

So, I don't know if you knew this buuuut, my Hubby is freaking amazing. For 2 weeks before Christmas he stayed after work for 4 hours every day to create the masterpiece above. This gorgeous armoire is hands down the nicest thing I own. He built it all himself out of all solid wood. It was the biggest surprise and I am so lucky to have such a talented thoughtful husband! (BTW this was taken in our apartment and took up half the room, it looks much better in our new room.)

We are Moved!

2010-02-04T20:43:00.001-07:00

For weeks and weeks we have been cleaning, painting, packing, cleaning, and now we are finally done. (sort of) We still have so much to do and it's hard to not be overwhelmed. But it's good to be moved in and living in our new big nice place. The animals are loving the space and the big back yard and now we have a new kitty. She was my grandmothers and now we get to take care of her. She is a big fluffy Persian sweet heart. Shes actually pretty little, she's bony inside all those pounds of fur. She is very spacey and enjoys staring at random spots on the wall. There is also a big white owl who lives in our yard. It's exciting to sneak a peak of him while he flies from tree to tree. I'm kind of afraid he might eat Lulu though.

We are about ready for a break now! I look like a cat lady with all these pictures. Haha.

Worst Day Ever (Part 2)

2010-01-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

I had closed the doors that I did not want people going inside of. Our personal belongings were in these rooms. Things I had already had a claim on. Our purses, our jackets, you get the idea. I’m not sure why I thought that people had enough sense to not go in these rooms. But they did. I walked in several times finding people carrying MY THINGS out. Not only in the rooms, but the cupboards of the kitchen, people were buying our laundry detergent, our napkins, our paper towels, our food. They even went through the dish washer. I couldn't make the signs fast enough that said “Do Not Open” but apparently people thought that meant “Do Not Open this particular drawer, but the ones all around it are fair game.” And while I was making these signs, people just kept opening the doors and taking my things! I found a woman GOING THROUGH MY PURSE that I had hidden under a coat in a CLOSED ROOM. I felt completely violated. On top of this, people were coming into the home through the garage, taking things, and leaving out the front door, robbing us. They took a beautiful painting my mother had done years ago for my grandmother. Stole it right out from under us, along with many other things.

Finally, 13 hours later, we had it all cleaned up. All of us were aching from head to toe. We got a lot of stuff sold and we learned some lessons.

1) Make signs, lock doors, or tape rooms/cupboards/closets off.
2) Have a person stationed in every room.
3) Price the more expensive stuff out on tags before hand.
4) Take some serious time to scour the house and get every little thing locked up that you do not want to sell. Even if it is a box of aluminum foil. People can be vultures.
This was the worst. I was so tired but could not sleep that night because the second I closed my eyes I would just see swarming people in my home asking me how low I will go on the price. I am SO thankful it is over. We now get to live in this beautiful home, and at the garage sale I got to meet quite a few of my new friendly neighbors. Yay!

The 4th Worst Day of My Life (Part 1)

2010-01-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

Recently, my grandmother moved from her home that she has been residing in alone for a few years, to a nursing home. Her home was left in my folks care and they wanted to have a garage sale to clear out all of her many things she has been hoarding over the years. So for the past week my lovely husband Cody, my mother and I have been cleaning out her home. She was a garage sale shopaholic. Not exaggerating whatsoever. Every corner, every tiny little space was chuck full of stuff. Crap. Nonsense that NO ONE would EVER need. Most things probably hadn’t been handled since they were purchased. Many things were still in packages, or still had tags on them from the DI. She had 5 closets full of clothes that hadn’t been worn for years and years. Boxes and boxes (and boxes) of junk jewelry. Rooster statues, TONS of Christmas décor. Crystal animal figurines. This was work. We put it all out in the garage and finally, on Saturday, we had the sale.
Cody and I woke at 5:30 am and got there about 6. We set up tables and started putting things out. We still were not even halfway done an hour later. My parents came and started helping and just as I was setting out Jewelry people started showing at 7:15 with flashlights (serious garage sale-ers). They swarmed around the Jewelry table and from that point on, I didn’t have a second to breath til 7 hours later. People were everywhere. I’ve never seen so many people at a garage sale. Oh yeah, and it was actually somewhat of an “Estate” sale. People could go in the house and look at the furniture in the living rooms. That was the idea anyway. Here is where the nightmare begins.

Merry Christmas Tag!

2009-12-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper for sure. So much more fun to rip paper off of a gift.
2. Real tree or Artificial? Fake. The idea of real is nice, but not worth the needles and bugs that come with it.
3. When do you put it up? Usually the first weekend in December, I don't like decorating in November, it doesn't feel right.
4. Favorite Christmas theme? Snow men. Don't know what this means, really.
5. Do you like eggnog? Absolutely I do.
6. Favorite gift received? Last year Cody made me a picture frame to put a picture of the temple in. He made it by hand. I cried. Also, 2 years ago Cody proposed on Christmas. That was a pretty amazing gift.
7. Hardest person to buy for? My dad for sure. He's so old fashioned and particular.
8. Easiest person to buy for? My husband, Cody.
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Nope. Someday maybe.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail!
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Last year at a white elephant party I ended up with an ugly crappy ring that would barley fit a 5 year olds fingers.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Three way tie between Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I start thinking of gifts about September. I start buying in November. I'm usually done by the beginning of December.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? My mom's Chex Party Mix.
16. Lights on the tree? White lights. Unless the tree is white, then I think blue lights look good.
17. Favorite Christmas song? Silver Bells and Carol of the Bells.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Home.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen. And Rudolph.
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star
21. Open the presents? Christmas morning.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? St. George weather is crappy this time of year. Freezing but no snow.
23. Favorite ornament or color? Red and green usually. Last year I did a peacock theme with blue and green though.
24. Favorite for Christmas Dinner? Honey baked ham.
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Pentax K200d. It's not going to happen though.
26. TAG - Elisa Garn, Carie Lilga. Whoever else. I don't know who reads my blog.

What's Your Secret?

2009-12-07T22:59:00.000-07:00

PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death and God from Frank Warren on Vimeo.

This video is on this weeks post secret page. I usually don't watch videos on blogs but for some reason I was intrigued and it turned out to be very worth it. Take a look. :) Oh, and my secret is... I can't resist opening the dish washer while its running and taking deep breaths of the clean steaminess. hehe.

Cloudy Day at the Duck Pond

2009-12-01T22:00:00.001-07:00

Photos from an afternoon walk to the duck pond above our house. We saw a water turtle on a log there... slightly odd for St. George.

Handmade Christmas Gifts!

2009-12-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

This year for Christmas I have my brother. (My siblings and I switch off every year so we don't have to get gifts for a million people) His youngest 2 daughters are 8 and 14 and I decided to make them dolls that look like them... sort of. The blonde one is my niece Emilee. I do not sew and I am not sure why I decided to do a sewing project like this, so I got help from my amazing crafty cousin, Lindy. It took us 9 hours. Lots of fun to make though. My nieces better appreciate!
The one with black hair is my niece Angel. She likes to dress more on the dark side. We made them little wing backpacks that are removable. There were some serious misleading pattern problems but overall I think they turned out really cute.

Pumpkins!

2009-10-07T16:46:00.000-06:00

Yes, there's more.

2009-10-05T19:08:00.001-06:00

Spooky Shelves

2009-10-05T18:52:00.001-06:00

This is a little witch my mom gave me. She has had it since the 1960's and it is definitely my most favorite decoration. These shelves are covered in leaves I gathered last fall. They give the shelf a nice touch, I think.

Witchy Poo Stationary Project

2009-10-05T18:41:00.000-06:00

This is a fun little crafty thing I made this year to go next to my "Halloween Tree" which is manzanita branches filled with little ghosts I made. I found a really creepy vintage picture of a woman dressed as a witch. (Or maybe she is a witch!) And pretty much used her as inspiration for the rest of it. The background is made of a picture of a dead willow tree covered in velum paper that has a "Witches Brew" that I made up printed on it with silly ingredients such as spider legs and lemon zest. Then I printed a famous picture of a thought-to-be real ghost, and drawings of a spider and a skeleton. I drew pictures of spiders on a doily and burned things to give them that vintage effect. I think it turned out pretty neat looking.

Crows are Creepy

2009-10-05T18:37:00.000-06:00

For some reason this year I've decided that I like crows. They are becoming the main theme throughout my house for the creepy and best part of the year.

Button Creatures

2009-10-05T18:33:00.001-06:00

These were pretty easy to make and so fun.

Halloween with the Blacks

2009-10-05T18:23:00.000-06:00

Table Decor

Gina Update

2009-10-02T11:50:00.000-06:00

Hello! It's been a while! I apologize in advance for the complaining I'm about to do. So for the past week I have been in serious, SERIOUS pain. Last Friday Cody, my dearest love, tried to pop my back as he always does, but something in my back got really screwed up. Two days later I tried to have him squeeze my back to get it to pop and I pretty much fell down from the pain. I went to a chiropractor the next day and it seemed to only get worse after I saw him, so a couple days later I went back and OMG, the pain! I left his house and moving in any direction at all was excruciating. To the point of tears. I’ve tried ice, cold packs, heat packs, Ibuprofen, nothing works. So I’ve had to stay lying flat in bed for the last couple of days and I also went to this physical therapy place. I made Cody some cool mix tapes though. It seems to be slowly getting better and I am now thankfully able to be back to work. Oh yeah, the other day I received my new camera! I’m loving it so far. It’s just a point and shoot, but it is so nice. Far, far better from that sad excuse for a camera we had before which couldn’t take a non-blurry photo to save it’s worthless little life. Ahhh, anyway, that’s what’s up. And it's now October!!!! My favorite time of year. This means that I now get to do what satisfies me the very most in life. Decorate for the Holidays!!!! YES. Pictures shall be posted.

The Ten Cannots

2009-09-11T11:41:00.001-06:00

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

- William J. H. Boetcker

Eventful Day at the Office

2009-08-27T14:15:00.000-06:00

Bored? Perhaps. But from boredom comes camera phone pictures. Many many pictures of random things at my office on Main Street.

My feet hurt. We have a lot of stairs here.
Thus, my shoes on the floor.

My messy desk! It has been a hectic week. Thats how I like it though. Makes things go faster.

This is the coolest alley way. The door to the left leads to our bottom floor. Eating lunch in here is a nice getaway. When there arent naked photo shoots going on. Yeah. Photographers like to come here and take pictures. Sometimes naked ones.

Outside my lovely window. That sign hangs over our entrance. It says "Main Street Ballroom and Theater." This building used to be a big theater in the old days. I believe it was built in the 1930's? Not sure. Now, however, it is an office. Lots of people wander in because of this deceptive sign and we have to shew them out.

This is a very long hallway in the basement. Its a new edition. That door way down there used to be really small. Maybe 4 feet high. It was funny to see people walk out of it. But they made it regular sized. This area used to be under the stage. Its a very creepy basement when you are down there alone. I think the womens bathroom is haunted. Probably just wishful thinking though.

ABC's About Me.

2009-08-18T10:05:00.000-06:00

This was on my good friend Carie's blog so I decided to do it.

A - Age: 21.
B - Bed size: King
C - Chore you hate: Any Chore.
D - Dog: Chihuahua
E - Essential start your day item: Bagel!
F - Favorite color(s): Turquoise and Sea Green
G - Gold or Silver: Silver
H - Height: 5'10
I - Instruments you play: Piano - Only a bit
J- Job: Marketing Assistant
K - Kids: Not yet. Only 14 neices and nephews. Oh, and my kitty and doggie.
L - Living arrangements: Cute apartment overlooking St George with my hubby!
M - Mom's name: Cindy
N - Nicknames: Kiku, G-Dogg, Gene.
O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: No
P - Pet Peeve: Movie Theater Seat Kicking
Q - Quote from a movie: "Oh Baxter, you are my little gentleman."
R - Right or left handed: Right
S - Siblings: Seven, 5 sisters and 2 brothers
T - Time you wake up: 7:30 ish
U - Underwear: What? Yes?
V - Vegetable you dislike: Is a mushroom a vegetable? Mushroom.
W - Workout style: Long walks with no hills.
X - X-rays you've had: my knee and teeth
Y - Yesterday's best moment: Going to bed.
Z - Zoo favorite: Reptile House.

Cody is Waaaay too cute.

2009-07-27T12:24:00.001-06:00

I just got a call on my office phone saying I had a "Special Delivery" downstairs waiting for me. Cody sent these beautiful flowers to my work! Flowers make me happy, especially surprise ones that are sent to my work. I am SO lucky! I really don't deserve such a sweet guy. He puts up with all of my complaining and non-sense and annoying wife behavior, takes me on amazing trips for our anniversary and sends me gorgeous flowers for no reason. I am truly blessed to have my Cody.

Around the Apt.

2009-07-22T00:53:00.000-06:00

Summer Table Setting

1 Year Anniversary

2009-07-21T23:47:00.000-06:00

I finally got a card reader so I can post the pictures I have been waiting to post since June. Cody's and my anniversary was back in June and I have got to tell you what he did for me. So get ready, because I am about to blow your mind.
Cody told me we would be doing something special the next weekend. So on Friday morning my alarm went off at 7 for me to get ready for work. On my alarm clock was an envelope with a letter and a card inside from Cody that said he had requested the day off and that we would be leaving on a trip and here is what I need to pack. It said he would be back (from some unknown place) soon. So I packed and an little while later he pulled up in a 2009 Dodge Charger. That was confusing. He explained that he rented a car and that was the coolest one St George has to offer. (CUUUTE!) He had already thought of everything too, he made plans for my mom to pick up lulu, and we had ordered a carpet cleaner which was supposed to arrive over the weekend. He had already put a key outside so his mom could come over and put the carpet cleaner inside. He already had all the drinks and snacks and anything else I would probably forget if I were the coordinator. We drove. and drove and drove and drove and 10 hours later we arrived in Carmel, CA.
He booked us a room in this way way cute place called Normandy Inn. It was all cottagey and had pots of flowers everywhere and it was built in 1902 or something. The next day we got up and he had the whole day planned. After our delightful continental breakfast we went down to the beach (so pretty.) Then we drove up the coast to all these cool places like this gorgeous beach with these huuuge cliffs (which turned out to be either a nudist beach or there were a few foreigners there.) And we went to Santa Cruz board walk and we went on a roller coaster and a sky ride like at lagoon that goes along the beach. And then we went to an old old lighthouse and this road that went through a forest with all these cool giant trees and old barns and stuff, and then we went to have sushi for dinner at this way cool authentic place. Oh my gosh, he must have taken so long to plan all of this stuff.
As if all of this wasn't enough (just giving me the day off work was a good enough surprise for me) when I wanted to keep something for the scrap book like some leaves or sand, he brought zip lock bags JUST for that specific purpose, and he even brought a folder which he had labled the "Memory Folder" which was to hold all of the tickets and little things we wanted to keep. It was so cute. The next day we drove back home. Anyway, sorry that was really long but I just had to tell you how lucky I am! (The drive was VERY long, so these pictures are mostly from on the way because I was so bored, and then the battery ran out.)

Outside of our room. Carmel Beach

Passive Aggressive

2009-07-08T14:39:00.001-06:00

Hello. I haven't been posting much stuff because I have lost my camera's usb cord! It angers me. And my computer also got a dumb virus. But hey! I found a way funny website. http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/ It is Hil-arious. It's all about funny notes people find and send in. Check it out!

Postsecret

2009-06-22T19:55:00.000-06:00

I found this lovely little image on postsecret today. Most likely not meant for me but it brightened my day. :)

B&W Photos

2009-06-01T22:25:00.000-06:00

Random pic of my apartment and my baby Lu-lu Belle!

Roses

2009-06-01T22:21:00.000-06:00

I took these a little while ago. I love my close up setting!

Laguna Beach

2009-05-26T23:18:00.000-06:00

Cody and I took a trip to see my lovely sister Aimee in California and visited Laguna Beach. It is so pretty there. This was a few months ago but I'm just now getting around to uploading these pictures cause I'm cool like that.

Cody's Calendar Photo

Mr. Krabbs

The Weather I Live For

2009-05-26T22:52:00.001-06:00

Today it rained in St. George. The summer rains here are amazing. Not much actual rain usually comes but it's still gorgeous. Just as the sun was all golden before it went down in the west, dark clouds rolled in above us and quiet thunder started to rumble. Cotton was flying around in the static atmosphere, catching the gold light. Then little dropletts started to fall down. A rainbow appeared in the east. Everything seemed to turn this beautiful orangey color. I sat outside on my porch and took pictures of it. I'm always so involved with trying to keep the moment with my camera, that I miss the actual moment. I kind of did that in the end since my new camera isn't working. But I still managed to get a few good shots.
I am so lucky because my apartment has a beautiful view of the St. George Temple. The view of the temple in the rainstorm reminded me of how beautiful the world is. Right now it is night and I can see the temple from my window. It is the brightest thing out there. It reminds me of a quote by President Boyd K. Packer. "The house of the Lord, bathed in light, standing out in the darkness, becomes symbolic of the power and the inspiration of the gospel of Jesus Christ standing as a beacon in a world that sinks ever further into spiritual darkness." I always think of that when I catch a glimpse of the temple at night. Didn't mean to go all church on you. Haha. Bye.

Happy Birthday to Me.

2009-05-26T22:36:00.000-06:00

It was my 21st birthday last Wednesday and I got many sweet surprises from my hubby. He refinished this guitar to be my favorite color and made vinyl stickers made of the picture on our wedding invitation and put them on the guitar. It is my favorite possession now. Guess I will have to learn to play it.

In love with Tights

2009-05-07T22:17:00.000-06:00

This last winter, I fell in love with colorful tights. I know that it is now in the 90's in Southern Utah, but I still want to share my obsession. Cody and I did this photo shoot a while ago, it was way fun.

Toaster.

Fun Kitchen Stuff

2009-05-07T22:04:00.000-06:00

I went to big lots one day for some Sunday school supplies and saw the cutest decorations! That led to me going to that same store 5 times in 3 days. This is the outcome. Now I just need to burn those ugly, frightening 70's chairs.

My First Blog Post!

2009-05-07T21:01:00.000-06:00

I finally started a blog! I love reading my families and friends blogs, and now I'm finally giving in. I have been meaning to do this for a while, so I have been taking pictures for it and I have a lot to catch up on.
Cody and I have been married for almost a year now, which is bananas, because it seems like it's only been a month or two. We're almost non-newly weds. Craziness. Cody is on a little break from school now and is having fun working in his wood shop. I am just working at LearnKey, which I am loving, and working on my domestic skills, and, bow staff skills.
My birthday is coming up, I will be 21. Which means...nothing, really. Ha.
Ok, that is all. Bye.