Apologies

Anyone who has been around Facebook, Pinterest, or basically the internet in general for the past five years has probably seen these cards at some point. The website has some pretty inappropriate ones, so I might not recommend searching them out...but sometimes they are just perfect for saying "I'm sorry," to the one you love. Last night Dave and I emailed these to each other at the exact same time without even realizing the other one had done the same thing (yes, we email each other from 10 steps away. It's the American dream: two computers in one home and plenty of laziness and poor verbal communication).

Me, to him


Him, to me

Some other funnies that I found on Pinterest:


This is how I feel this week...


I usually assume I am getting fired, broken up with, or disowned. So far none of those has happened. But it is still scary.



Ahahahaha. I can make fun of the English people because I am one of them.


Do any of you have awesome boards of funny stuff on Pinterest that I should know about? I mean, even since Facebook got rid of bumper stickers in like 2008 I have been hurting for a great funny time waster to pretend I don't waste way too much time on...

Dave Got a Grievous Injury

Ok, maybe not really that grievous. But doesn't he just look so sad? (Don't mind the mangy sideburns. I need to give him a trim. Yikes).

Yesterday when Dave was picking me up from work he asked me if I noticed anything different on his face and of course I noticed this little cut thing on his chin (it looks a little worse in person) that was kind of scary and open-looking. Apparently he had a collision with a pedestrian on his bike while he was riding down the ramp South of campus yesterday. He said if he had a video tape of his he could have proven that it was the other kids fault, and although I believe him even without the video, I wish I had it so that I could understand how he:

1. Ended up off of his bike but landed on his feet.

2. Had the other kid end up holding his bike while he was not even touching it

3. Cut his face (he thinks it might have been the other kid's backpack or something)

4. And, my favorite, how he lost one shoe in the process (ha!)

This incident just feeds my ever-burning argument that hordes of careless pedestrians, clueless bikers (not Dave though :), and horrendous drivers can not live harmoniously in the small microcosm of BYU campus.

Speaking of horrendous driving, I have actually not legally changed my name to Mizukawa yet partially because I would have to get a Utah driver's license since I am not going back to AK anytime soon, and I will do anything to avoid being a Utah driver just yet....because then at all times I would have to be either a) texting while driving, b) veering drunkenly while driving, c) running red lights, d) honking for no apparent reason, or e) flipping people off (which happened to my sister-in-law when she didn't move the second the light turned green. By another girl! I didn't think girls flipped people off). To all of you from Utah, I love and admire you and you probably do not fall into this category. It's the other 80% of the state.

To end on a more positive note, though, everyone should watch the First Presidency Christmas message this Sunday! It is one of my favorite events of the Christmas season but I sometimes forget in the midst of the crazy school stuff this time of year, so this is a reminder to me, mostly.

Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you are having a most festive holiday. Dave and I are celebrating with his family this time, and I have had a great day which included running to the St. George temple this morning, pie breakfast (aka a truly wonderful Thanksgiving tradition), playing with little children, and eating lots of food in shades of tan, white, and orange.

I know that a post like this is neither original nor probably that entertaining for anyone but myself, but I would be remiss if I did not stop today and think about all of my many blessings--and this is just one day that I am going to do so :)

So, in honor of the date, the following are 24 things that I am extremely grateful for (in no particular order, except for number 1):

1. My testimony of the restored gospel. Hands down, the biggest blessing in my life, and the one around which anything else that is meaningful revolves.

2. My cute sweet husband who puts up with a LOT of annoying and probably tiresome habits of mine without complaining...

3. Latter-day prophets on the earth.

4. Food. Food Food. Foodfoodfood.

5. A not injured body.

6. Healthiness

7. A job that I like.

8. That I get to go to college.

9. A car.

10. The temple and the fact that I am sealed to Dave because of the covenants that we can make there.

11. Little babies that I am related to and get to hold.

12. The fact that I have two sisters that live five minutes away from me.

13. Text messaging that makes it easy to keep in touch with family and friends whenever I want to, with great ease (although it is not the same as face to face...)

14. M'stories at night.

15. A warm apartment.

16. My family that still does tons for me even though we live very far away, and the fact that I will get to see them all in three weeks!

17. Even though a lot of people complain about things in our country right now, the fact that we still have more freedoms and rights than many, many other nations.

18. Books.

19. The fact that I have a washing machine in my apartment.

20. A whole awesome family of in-laws that I love.

21. The fact that I have all four of my grandparents...something I should never take for granted.

22. Great friends that I love and am lucky to have in my life.

23. My bed.

24. A new and much better functioning computer.

There are soooo many more that I could mention, but I will save those to talk about for the rest of the year...I hope that you are all stuffed with pie and rolls and turkey and every delicious thing that you can eat with abandon today!

Clorox failed me

 
In church on Sunday, someone sneezed on the back of my neck. Like, full on, spitty snotty sneezed while they were leaning forward and about two inches from the back of my head. I sat there singing the hymn and trying soooo hard to not feel animosity because we love our ward members, right?...I just whispered my anger to Dave...and then went into the nursery room afterwards and used one of the Clorox wipes that we use for the toys to wipe off my neck. Yes, they are not meant for skin, I know, but it was an emergency!

Well, I woke up this morning with a sore throat and a stuffy nose so I am pretty sure it is Clorox's fault.

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways...

So Claire and I have the wonderful opportunity to be taking a Teachings of the Living Prophets class together this semester. It's been really quite grand thus far and today I got a special extra something-something as well with this lovely gem...

Leopard print flats with polka dot socks. My wife's always flexing her fashion muscles and today she really hit it out of the park!

Disasters in Sewing

So I know that originally this blog was more about my running endeavors and whatnot but lately I have been trying to be crafty so I thought I would blog about that, too. But don't worry. I failed and so this will not be turning into a crafty blog anytime soon.

Saturday I tried my very best to recreate this shirt from an old long-sleeved t-shirt:

Cute, huh? It didn't look too hard and I had been meaning to get out my machine for a while so while Dave was in Richfield on Saturday I busted it out and watched a few episodes of Law and Order SVU in a strange bout of nostalgia for my friends Jac and Jenn and the many afternoons I sat eating cereal and watching it with them when we all lived together....

Well, try as I might I did not end up with a cute re-purposed shirt, but this:

A ripped mess of stretchy junk and masses of thread.

I can't get my machine to sew stretchy fabric! It's not like it's Spandex or something. I tried sewing a piece of sturdier cotton to compare and it did just fine. Does anyone know what the problem could be? I tried changing the needle to the one that was supposed to be better for stretchy stuff but it made no difference. It just plain won't stitch....the machine itself works fine but no thread actually stays in the fabric. My theory is a bobbin issue but I can't think of what. Any seamstresses perhaps know what to do? (Katrina I am talking to you here...)

Hey I Feel the Same Way!

Parks and Rec is one of me and Dave's favorite shows. We seriously look forward to Thursday all week because our "stories" are on and that is one of them. If you know the character April, you know that this quote from her, to her boyfriend Andy, is pretty accurate:

"I guess I kind of hate most things. But I never really seem to hate you. So I want to spend the rest of my life with you, is that cool?"

(From the episode where she and Andy have a surprise wedding).

I don't know why I thought this was so funny. But last week I texted Dave and said "I hate everything today. Except you. You should feel great about that."

And then I remembered this quote.

(I didn't really hate everything. I just strongly disliked a lot of things at that exact moment).

And I also got this little surprise in my half of the medicine cabinet last night.....

The note said "To the victor go the spoils...You win!" due to the fact that we had a test in our religion class that day and I beat him by one little point. So I got purple Skittles as my reward. I think if he would have beat me, I would have just given him a pouty evening as his prize.  What a gem. I really do always like that David, even when I am in a terrible mood and I am mad at everything else....I think that is a good sign. 

Corntummies

Last night we decided to throw good judgement to the wind and go on *gasp* a fun outing on a school night! That is the beauty of FHE, right? You can do fun things on Monday because it is a commandment!

We went to Cornbelly's corn maze (and other associated activities) with some other couples in our ward and it was way fun. I had always seen ads for Cornbelly's and thought 1) what a singularly creepy name it was and 2) how sad it would be if I left Utah and had NEVER been to a corn maze. So I am glad that we were able to fulfill that dream.

We got there and discovered that the place was overrun with people but surprisingly it didn't really affect the fun and we still got plenty lost in the corn. There was also a bunch of other activities like peddle bike thingies, a tractor pull thing, duck racing, obstacle courses (actually those were for small children but we obviously still did them and I think they might have been Dave's favorite part.), "jumping pillows" , and some haunted things that we didn't go to. Annndddd there were plenty of opportunities for cheesy pics, aka what we do best, so here you are:

Hog Wild!

Slightly painful horsey swings

BLAST OFF!

Dave was so sad that this is the best picture I could get of him on the reclining bike things. He was cruising way faster than the other small child in the course.

Just hanging out in our giant rocker!

Mike and Rachel

Jordan and Kim are rule breakers apparently

             

Dave really wanted a jumping picture and this was the best thing we got :( And that kid in the background was in every single picture that all of us took at the victory bridge until Kim asked him to move. I admire her guts, I just thought you had to live with photo bombers.

Frolicking in the corn. I look a little out of it but I promise I was just high on good clean Cornbelly's fun!

A Shoddy Re-cap

Hi everyone!

I know that no one reads this anymore except for Dave, and he lived it all with me, but it is for him that I am trying to get back up on the horse after falling of for the last month. See, life kind of exploded and in my attempts to "prioritize" (aka watch more E Network and make wayyy too many batches of pumpkin cookies in between classes, work, homework, church callings, and family events) I decided that the blog would have to wait. But I have missed keeping a little record of things and so I am going to do a superfast catch up with the terrible phone pics that I have of the past month (I still can't find my camera battery. boo).

I decided yesterday that come heck or high water I was GOING to run up the canyon because the fall colors are so pretty right now! One thing that is great about Utah is that fall lasts a little longer than it does in AK (it literally is one week before the leaves get covered in snow) and and I LOVE it. It is so close to being over, though, that I had to take advantage of it even if it meant getting up before seven to squeeze my run in but it was obviously so worth it! It was a moment where I had to say a little prayer of thanks for the beautiful world that we live in.

Dave and I welcomed our newest addition to the Mizukawa family....fridge number 3! Yep, we have killed two fridges in the ten months that we have been married. I have no idea how we could do such a thing but it is pretty great when you wake up and your food is warm and rotting and you have no way of keeping all of your frozen food and leftovers cold. Luckily this time only the fridge and not the freezer broke so we didn't lose the expensive stuff, and Tyler and Kiku came to our rescue again and let us borrow their coolers, so we were fine for a few days until we got a new one. Luckily our landlords (aka my parents) are wonderful and got a new for the apartment one so here is to hoping this one stays!

 

(I was just really intrigued by the perfect curly-q of my cone)

Dave's parents are huge BYU football fans and season ticket holders so we have gotten to see them a lot this fall! I seriously admire their dedication....my own son could be playing football every weekend and I don't think I would drive seven hours total every weekend to watch him play. Ok maybe if he was my favorite son. But they just love those Cougs! Even Dave's cute grandma gets way into the games and watches with a dedication that I could only wish to have. I have realized that to be a part of things in this family I have to amp up my interest in football and generally being competitive, so I am learning as we go. 

One perk of seeing Dave's parents a lot (besides their company, obviously) is that we usually go out with other extended family to eat before or after the games. I have been trying some things that I would not normally try, and have been to two restaurants in a row where they did not even have forks. Let's say my chopstick skills are shoddy for a girl who married Asian. That probably should have been a deal breaker but I stab my way through dinner alright. I usually take about twice as long as everyone else to eat and am still hungry at the end, but I just take the leftovers home and snarf them with my white-trash forks in solitude after everyone leaves. It's like binge-eating with a cultural twist.

And finally....I found time this weekend to be crafty! Ever since discovering Pinterest I just feel sad all the time that I can't be a stay at home mommy and make cute wreaths and baby blankets and inspirational quote board things and all sorts of other wonders (because we all know that moms magically have all this spare time on their hands and no other demands) but I made this little thing yesterday. The blue flower turned out a little wonkier than I had envisioned so it might get replaced this week. I also had one of those cute inspirational printables that everyone is making printed at Maceys and it is, as Dave says "totes adorb.":

So my domestic yearnings have been temporarily silenced. 

Thus far it has been a great fall! I hope everyone else is having a good October too!

Baudville is my favorite catalogue

A little background:

Over the summer, Melissa and I spent a lot of time together. 10:30-2:30 every day, to be exact. As time passed, we developed lots of inside jokes and it generally made life much more pleasant. These include, but are not limited to, certain people that we knew would never ever reply to an email no matter what, "(a country that must not be named for fear of someone figuring out what we are talking about. Melissa knows)", blaming each other every day for not remembering to get the mail, and Hefty Lefty. Those are all that I can think of right now, Melissa feel free to add.

One of the best things, though, was this terrible catalogue called "Baudville." Here is a handy link to their site if you would like to purchase anything to motivate your employees, roommates, or spouse. It has really classy stuff like coffee mugs that say "you're the hail to our brainstorm" and the like. Out office must have ordered something out of it a long time ago and forever more we got a copy of the catalogue once a week. We would flip through it and make fun of the stuff and once Melissa even cut out some of the motivational sayings and taped them around our computer, for a little pick-me-up around the office (like eight people then asked us what they were for, and when we said "for motivation" they looked at us like we were cray-cray).

So since it was my birthday last week, Melissa told me that she had a gift for me but it might be a little late. I was wondering what it was, since she is a world-renowned gift-giver (seriously, though) and she didn't even have to do anything for me in the first place. But she arrived to the office on Monday with this:

My very own Baudville gift! And complete with treats inside and cute tissue paper! It truly was a birthday miracle. Love that Melissa.

My Day of Birth

So it's official, I am a 23-year-old. If I was not already married I would have been kicked off my parents insurance yesterday, but seeing as I already was I don't think that there is anything particularly significant about this year in life...except I am going to make it awesome, obviously. I feel kind of old though....I think I thought that I would be done with school and have kids by now? But I think maybe I just want a child that I can take trick-or-treating and to water parks under the guise of having a child.

The festivities started at midnight on Friday. Well, technically they started Thursday because I went out with my roommates (ok, my old roommates obviously but I still call them that) for a classic Sonic ice cream event because it was Jac's birthday too so we always celebrate together! Maybe someday I will blog about our most awesome 21st birthday party ever in which it was pitch black out and we had like two little candles lighting a whole pavilion. (It was seriously the best though). But anyway, in my family we have a very strict gift-opening regimen where you do NOT open presents until the evening of your birthday when everyone is assembled but Dave's parents were visiting and once it struck midnight on Friday they were like "well, it's official. You can open your presents now!" and I was all like "what?" but I did it and it was so freeing! I think I will buck tradition like this every year!

Dave's parents were so sweet to get me presents and they got me a really cute cardigan and this cute magnet board that I think I will hang in our kitchen. I loved both items and it was super sweet of them to do! Please also ignore how haggard I look (and I have no idea what happened to my hair) that was such a busy Friday and it was like midnight. Also, I really like how you can see Dave's dad laying on our couch in the top picture :)

Dave had told me that he ordered my gift online but it hadn't come yet, so I was joking when I said "I think Dave has prepared something to share now." I mean, I was just hoping for a light song and dance routine but it turns out he had my gift after all. I was super curious about what he was getting me because like two months ago he had told me that he knew what he wanted to get me for my birthday. Usually Dave kind of stresses over gifts so I was all kinds of wondering what this miraculous idea was. Turns out it was this:

He bought me new scriptures with my full name on them! I forgot that I had mentioned in passing once that my mom had scriptures with her maiden name on them until I was in high school, and apparently this disturbed Davito so he wanted to make sure that I was properly identified :) (he is also very upset that Facebook won't let me change my name. But I promise that I am happily married and introduce myself as Claire Mizukawa. In case you were losing sleep over it or something). It was really sweet of him and I really love them.  I am excited because I want to use these when we read together and we can start marking them with stuff we talk about which will be cool.

The next day (or that same day, technically) we went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch (I had a free birthday appetizer, I couldn't resist!) and then to Salt Lake with my sisters so that we could go to the Relief Society General Meeting with my grandma (Dave watched football with G-pa Farr and I think it was a bonding experience for them). That was obviously awesome and then we went back to their house for cake and ice cream and more presents. Sorry I failed at taking any pictures of that whatsoever, but it's my birthday so I will do what I want, yo.

I felt oh so loved and I got some awesome gifts (new running shoes and a rap written by Anne Hopkin?!) so all in all it was a great day! I really love my family and friends and really appreciated all of the sweet texts and messages wishing me a happy bithday!

Edited to add: Some friends from our ward just stopped by and brought me fresh peaches because they heard it was my birthday yesterday, so the fun just never ends!

Current Trend

When you're a fifth-year college student, a lot of this happens:

Help me stay strong, friends!

Book ramblings

Remember how I was going to make Book Review Friday a thing? Well, that lasted one week, obviously. Sorry to everyone. Lately I have been reading tons and tons of YA books for my Young Adult Lit class and I have to say that it is so fun! I seriously save that homework till the end every day because it is so enjoyable. I am so glad that I get to be a teacher and read these fun books with kids....instead of some of the weird stuff I have had to read in college. I just pray that I have a department chair that doesn't mandate something terrible. Like the Poisonwood Bible like everyone had to read when I was a senior. bleh.

Anyway, for fun right now I am reading "One Day" which is the book that that movie with Anne Hathaway was based on. So far it is enjoyable....it's really light so it's the perfect chick lit for a mid-semester fun read. Although I have to admit that I usually only make it through like 3 pages before conking out at night, but I have I enjoyed those 9 pages so far. Warning though, they are college students. European ones.

I will tell you a book NOT to read: The Jane Austen Book Club. Dumb, dumb, dumb! I put it down a third of the way through. It was just sordid and inappropriate for no reason and the parts that weren't about the characters' scarring high school dating experiences were just boring people sitting around talking about Jane Austen. WHO CARES? I could read JA myself if I wanted to, why do I really want to hear what they have to say about a book that I am not even currently reading? I had strong feelings about the lameness of this book coinciding with its apparent popularity.

I suddenly started panicking that I own none of my favorite childhood books besides HP (and a random copy of Ramona and Beezus that I won), and so naturally I made it a priority to do a bunch of weird odd jobs on Amazon Mechanical Turk and earn Amazon credit and buy some. So yesterday I came home to my very own copies of "The Mitchells: Five for Victory" and "Betsy, Tacy, and Tib" in the mailbox! Heaven help our sons. I have no idea what to make them read. I had this horrible realization at dinner a few days ago that Dave has never read Little Women or The Secret Garden. Never even seen the movies!!! He was rather offended that I seemed so upset by this as he still turned out comparatively normal.

 The only boy books I read as a kid were "Johnny Tremain" (hated it) and "Adam of the Road" (hated it even worse. Seriously, just say "Adam of the Road" and me and my sisters will all start convulsing and gagging. It was one of the more misguided book decisions my mom made. Not all Newberry Award books are meant to be read by real live children). Although if our sons follow the current trends of male students they will never read a book for fun outside of school. Yes, less than 1/3 of 13-year-olds are daily readers. And the numbers are getting worse. They were too busy gaming or something. Don't get me started on this. I am in a Teaching Reading class too and we basically just sit around and decry the American teenager's literacy skills.

Whew. Ok I think that's all I had to say right now.

Last Week's Randoms

So I still cannot find my camera battery charger thing anywhere. I have no idea how things disappear in our tiny apartment but somehow they manage to and so I am relegated to lots of terrible phone pics until then. I thought I would share a few of the highlights:

 We went to my darling friend Laura's birthday party on Friday. She is just the cutest girl and quite the Japanophile (word?) so we had to oblige her with an Asian pic.

Laura's mom was also there and I wish I had a picture with her. She is the cutest little mom (she looks 20) and she was trying to make everyone dance like a real Colombian party.

 I had to get some blood tests at the doctors. My hypochondria struck again. But...I am fine! And I got a hot camo bandaid (picture carefully taken to omit worst hairy part of arms, for your benefit).

Ok this is so random to me. For like a month and a half how our parking spot neighbors (I don't know them so I don't feel to guilty about this) have had this mysterious sheet covering this big lumpy thing in their parking spot. Everyone keeps asking what it is and we had no idea until on Saturday I noticed that the sheet was off for the big reveal!

....little stump things? Not even firewood. My only thought is that maybe she is making some huge number of woodsy craft for Super Saturday or something.

One thing I didn't get a picture of was the delicious French Toast Casserole that I made for Dave's parents on Sunday. It was from Pioneer Woman, the website of wonderfully fattening food. It was really tasty but it was basically just bread pudding parading as breakfast. Works for me! I like to think that it made everyone feel better after the BYU game :( And I was really proud of myself because I was brave enough to try something new for the in-laws and it actually worked this time!

I'm Too Young for This Foolishness

So, lately I have been a little scatterbrained. I wish I could blame it on something cool, like being pregnant, but it is just due to being a little stressed and frazzled. Like three times this week I made really silly scheduling mistakes or put the wrong date on things. It is really embarrassing when you get text messages from the girl you visit teach wondering where you are (I could have SWORN it was next week that we decided on!). But anyway, when the sweet compassionate service committee in my ward left me a nail polish and a little birthday note on my doorstep yesterday I just assumed it was for my birthday this Saturday. However, later that day my aunt left this on my Facebook wall:

I seriously sat and stared at the screen for like three minutes. Wait, is it my birthday today? Is that possible? My mom forgets her own birthday sometimes but I am not old enough to not like my birthday yet am I? I finally got the courage to ask Dave and he confirmed that no, my birthday is definitely later this week. My Aunt Heather was just early. I really would not put it past myself lately to not know when the 24th is though.

The Only Good Thing That Happened Yesterday

Maybe I am being a little dramatic. BUT yesterday was just not a good day. A bit of a shocker, to use the Australian term. It was just a day where everything went wrong. I shall spare you the entire list but here are a few highlights:

*Entire hem of my JCrew gray skirt all of a sudden unraveled. So I walked around campus all afternoon with either a string tail or a completely un-hemmed skirt. Does anyone know how to do an invisible hem?

*Thought I scheduled a meeting with my Primary presidency. Turns out "reply" and "reply all" are two different things (who would have known?) and so I had just the bishopric member there but none of my counselors. They had no idea it was even on for sure.

*For some reason, my sandwich that I brought from home for lunch tasted like garbage. It is the same thing I have every day. It was very curious but served to worsen my foul mood.

Another thing that I did wrong was forget my phone at home. I got to campus and realized that I didn't have it with me, so I emailed Dave from work and asked him to bring it to campus with him. We have a class together (Teachings of the Living Prophets) so I figured I could just get it there. Usually Dave gets to that class really early but yesterday I got there at like 10 'till and he was no where to be seen. I waited and waited and felt like a dork because I had my bag on this seat for him but he finally hurried in right as the bell rang. He was....slightly....damp. Poor thing. He had arrived at campus and realized that he hadn't brought my phone, so he rode all the way back home and back in the like 15 minutes before class started. The worst part was he couldn't find my phone. I felt like the worst wife! I didn't discover until that evening when I got home that it was actually at the bottom of my bag the whole time....I'm an idiot...so it had all been for naught!

I did feel really bad that he had gone all the way home for me though...so I passed him this note in class:

He edited "sweet" to describe his more literal condition at that moment.

I am glad that at least he proved his deep love for me once more through this heroic act :)

Temple Day

Two years ago I had the most wonderful opportunity to be in a Relief Society presidency with three of the most amazing girls I have ever met. Before we got called none of us were really good friends in the ward and none of us lived in the same apartment or anything, but we hit it off immediately and became fast friends. We had lots of great adventures frosting ridiculous amounts of cookies, making love predictions, hawking pies to lure people to firesides, just generally scaring our poor sweet RS adviser in presidency meetings, which ran about an hour and a half average.... even though we all live in different wards (and towns) now I love it when you have a group of friends that you don't see for a while but when you do everything just clicks like you have been hanging out every day forever. 

Our dear Kate is about to leave for a mission to McAllen, TX and since she was the last member of us to go through the temple we decided that a temple trip was in order. She drove down from Bountiful (where she lives now...because she graduated from college at 19 what the heck?) to meet us at the Provo temple and we did a session together. 

It was so great to spend time with them in such a special place. It reminded me of in the scriptures when Alma the Younger meets the sons of Mosiah and is so happy to see that his friends have remained true...it is fun to see good friends and be able to share the happiness that the Gospel brings to you together.

Awesome squished phone shot. Thanks Laura! (she's the cute Latina)

Book Review Friday

I don't know if this will become a thing. Maybe it will become a thing? I have talked about books I like on here before, and I really like when I get recommendations from people that I trust....and I hope you trust me...why don't you trust me?!....you're reading my blog for Pete's sake.

Anywaaayyysss I think it would be cuter to say "Page-turner Tuesdays" or something but it's Friday and I want to talk about this so here you go. I am in a young adult literature class this fall and I have to read a truckload of books by the end of the semester. I am actually really excited, though, because I have to say that being an English major has killed my love of reading just a little bit. Isn't that sad? But I will just admit right now that Milton and Shakespeare and Chaucer are not really my thing. I mean, they're great and important and all but I would never read them for fun, and being forced to read them makes me. And if I have to buy another Norton Anthology of some kind of literature, which weighs 600lbs and the bookstore will NEVER buy back, I will spit a little (gleek, if you will). BUT, this class has us reading a lot of books that are just really really fun to read, even though they are technically for teenagers, and I think that it will really prepare me to teach so I am excited! We read The Outsiders last week and I had forgotten that I have a crush on Sodapop Curtis Or would, if I were a 16-year-old Greaser girl from Oklahoma. Don't tell Dave. Book crushes are allowed I think.

So anyway, this past weekend I read a book by an author that I really like, Markus Zusak. He is technically for young adults, but he is Australian and his books are sometimes released for adults here in the US so they are really more adult I think. I will warn you that he uses some bad language....like the "s word" a lot...so I wouldn't really let my young teenager read his stuff. This I will say though: Even though he uses some bad language and some of his books are a little "edgy" I think that his writing has a lot more literary and personal value than a lot of that really smutty YA stuff that gets published. Like I would 1000x rather recommend his books for a teenager that "Gossip Girl" or something because they actually promote really good values like friendship and compassion. And they are really funny. And super creative. I just wish he didn't have to use bad words to get the humor or the point across.

The book is called "I Am the Messenger." It is about this guy who lives a super mediocre life until he shoots a bank robber and then starts getting these cards in the mail, aces of each suite, which have names or words on them. They all correlate with a person that he is supposed to find and help in some way. He has to figure out who the person is and what it is that they need, and to add to it he doesn't know who is sending him these tasks but they are kind of sinister so it has a suspenseful element to it. I don't want to tell too much, but the tasks range from small and simple to scary and embarrassing. Even though it deals with some heavier topics, there are so many sweet moments in this book and it is really funny. The writing is just super original. Markus Zusak has a really different voice and if you have read "The Book Thief" you know what I mean. A lot of his sentences are really short and choppy and his imagery and verb usage are so fun and totally make you look at things in a new way.

I won't tell you the end but I cried, just a little. I do that a lot. But stupid Milton doesn't make you cry, does he (except when you cry because you still have two chapters of Paradise Lost to read and you want to stab your eyeballs with a pencil)?

What, don't you use receipts as book marks? And refuse a comb?

So run to your local library and get "I Am the Messenger!" I think it is just "The Messenger" in Australia, but they are the same. And don't get confused when he talks about sweating on Christmas in the book because that confused me until I realized that Australia in on the bottom of the world, and have reversed seasons. I am majoring in English....not Geography.

For Gramsie

Ok, ok it's been like a month. I feel kind of guilty and have been meaning to jump back on that bandwagon but nothing made me feel quite as bad as when I called my grandma yesterday and she said that she has been "blue" because she checks my blog every single morning and keeps getting repeatedly disappointed by my slovenly blogging ways (my words, not hers). Dagger to the heart! So to make it up to her I am renouncing my prodigal grandchild ways and coming back to the warm loving arms of the internet world.

The main reason that I have not been writing is that my family has been visiting all during the month of August. It was SO fun to see them and I have lots to talk about in regards to what we did. They finally had to go home and get back to real life, but we started school this week, so things have been busy with that too. I don't know why but this has definitely been the most stressful first week of school ever for me. Which is weird, because I tried to tell myself that my grades don't matter as much now that I am in my program and this is my last year, but I still got really overwhelmed last week for some reason. I guess doing well in school is something that has been so ingrained in me for my whole life and I feel really guilty not trying my best since it is a blessing to have a college education. I used to handle it just fine but with work and the normal household responsibilities I was feeling like I had like two hours a day for homework and last time I checked that is just simply not enough when you are expected to spend that much per class.

After this long weekend though I felt a lot better and had some time to get ahead and I feel a lot better this week. We went down to Dave's house in St. George and spent time with his family which is always fun. His brother's wife Julie had just had a baby girl on Wednesday so we got to see her and she was just the cutest! I am kicking myself because Dave and I both thought the other one was bringing a camera so we failed to take any pictures, but trust me, this is one cute baby. They are not sure what they are naming her for sure yet (like which should be the first name and which is the middle) and for some reason no one took my suggestion of Penelope and calling her Pippa seriously. Or Olive.

Julie asked us to help her make a cake for Makayla, who was turning two on Sunday. She loves phones (she calls them hellos) so she was wondering if we could make a "hello" cake for her. We plotted and sketched out an idea and spent like three hours on Sunday making this cake. I will admit that I was slightly disappointed in the outcome. For one thing, we used a chocolate cake and white frosting, which I should have known better than to do. So it was chocolate crumb frosting. It still turned out kind of cute but I felt really guilty because Julie is like a master party woman and I know that Makayla would have had a better cake from her. But we tried really hard and that's what counts, right? Our kids will just have to have ghetto cakes for their birthday.

Here is a super-cute pic of Makayla blowing out the candles, though:

It's just a phone pic, so not the best quality. Has anyone else ever noticed that candles make pictures look super crazy for some reason???

Makayla, your Uncle Dave and Aunt Claire love you, even if your cake looks a little wonky.

Sorry, I feel like this post has been a little grumpy sounding! I promise I am happy. To prove it I will share this cute printable I found on Mommy by Day, Crafter by Night:

Isn't that cute??? I want to make it into something but I don't know what. Maybe a pennant banner for football season or something.

Happy four-day week! 

Chopped

So my hair has been somewhat of a point of distress for me for quite some time now. I feel like I am more of a short-hair girl deep down. Like, ever since middle school I have been a big fan of cutting it at regular intervals. I am blessed with pretty thick and fast-growing hair so it really isn't that dramatic for me to cut since I know it will grow back within like a year.

However, in the last two years I have been growing it out and even though I didn't really love it long, I kind of felt like I should let it grow for the following reasons:

1. I kind of know that once I have kids I will always have it short (ish) so I wanted to take advantage of this last time that I can have long hair.

2. Dave has only ever known me with longer hair so I was worried that he wouldn't like it.

3. I wanted to donate it to Locks of Love and so I needed to stick it out longer.

However, having longer hair was not the best for me. I honestly just don't really care enough to put the time into taking care of it. I knew that when I am teaching next year I wouldn't want to get up any earlier than the already 6am wake-up call to fix it. I am cheap and poor so I buy terrible shampoo and conditioner and it was getting dried out. I never actually fixed it. And my bangs were way too long so they just got pinned back. AND, it was getting really heavy as it got longer so it had no body or style it just sat there looking frumpy. It caused me to feel like this:

So on Monday I realized that I was suffering for no reason. I measured and if I cut it right then, my hair would have to be pretty short but no shorter than I had ever had it before so I decided to just go for it. Plus, my family was coming in Tuesday and it would be fun to surprise them. I called the salon that I usually go to but the girl who used to cut my hair had moved and so I just got a random. I can be so impulsive sometime, I feel like growing up my mom would never ever have let me just decide to cut off a foot of hair on the spur of the moment and then just go to some person that I had never heard a recommendation for, but that is the beauty of being a grown up: I can make perhaps dumb decisions without permission (looonnngest sentence ever, sorry).

She had to put my hair in a few little ponies to cut it, and the girl accidentally cut one side higher than the other so my hair ended up pretty short...oh well...maybe recommendations are a good thing...but it turned out ok. I am still kind of getting used to it but Dave says he likes it. Well, actually he said he liked it but then he said that running his hands through my hair reminds him of running his hands through his friend Andy's hair (yes, Andy is a boy, who at one point in time had long hair) but after me getting mad about that he repented and said I still looked like a girl.

So, without further ado here are the inevitable bathroom pics (you can see that I did it not once but twice by the fact that I have two outfits! You're so welcome):

Please appreciate the piece that is sticking way out and the fact that I don't know how to look up from my phone for a picture.

And yes that random piece of bang will haunt me until the day I die.