Tidbits

Here's a recap of my life through the holidays and last couple months:

My brother got married to the most WONDERFUL girl that we just love!

I got some TOMS.  2 pair actually.  These beauties and a pair of brown herringbone.  Love them! 

The DOZENS and DOZENS of rolls my mom and I made for my brother's reception.

Thanksgiving at my great aunts.  Eat lots of food.  Play volleyball. Repeat. (Intermingled with random things like stacking 3 people on top of each other...)

Made gingerbread houses per our annual tradition.  Our pretty much rocked this year!

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I've also been really busy with church, eating healthier, loving my nephews, work, and being a good wife!

Against my consent

You know that saying "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent"?


That Eleanor Roosevelt was a pretty brilliant woman.  And yet I am confident that she never took her car to the mechanics... 


Those blasted mechanics don't seem to care one bit about my consent! 


My car (Stella) has been leaking and leaving oil in my driveway (at least it sure looked like oil to ME).  


A couple nights ago--after a warning light appeared on my dashboard--in the dark of the night, with a flashlight, I went out to check the oil in my car and is was LOW LOW LOW.  I asked my husband to pick up some oil on his way home and put it in.  He obligingly did so.  (Over the summer my car basically ran out of oil and I was paranoid that it had happened again.)  Much to my pleasure the oil he added caused the 'Maint Req" light on my dashboard to turn off.  I thought I was finally starting to gain a little mechanical knowledge.


Well...  I took my car in for an oil change after work today.   That puddle that I just KNEW was oil in my driveway... fluid I was SURE was oil... Was actually transmission fluid...  That plus the fact that I misread the oil stick (I don't even know what that thing is called.  Why did I think I knew anything about cars?) made for a car with TOO MUCH oil.  


Too much oil + broken transmission + mechanics looking at me like I didn't know a thing + not my consent = me feeling inferior.

Tom time

It's Toms time.  I've been thinking about it for a loooooong time and I'm gonna get them.  

I'm just not sure which pair to get.  Help me out?

Choice #1  Brown herringbone

Choice #2 Classic and natural

Choice #3 Go with almost everything in my wardrobe (and look at the animals inside!) ...yet kind of boring

Choice #4  My favorite color, but not as versatile. 

Choice #5 I feel like this is a boring choice, but I really love the grey.

There are some other super fun choices, but I think my first pair needs to be a solid instead of patterned.

What do you think?  Which pair gets your vote?

Time

After listening to Ian S. Arden talk about using time wisely and hearing the bishop in my ward talk about staying busy with good things I have been thinking about what I spend my time on.


To say that I have been slacking when it comes to exercising would be a gross understatement...  I did okay over the summer, but when I went back to work when school started I had less time.  I kept thinking that after I got in a good routine and settled into this school year I'd have more time. 

Guess what...  That never happened!  In fact the opposite happened--I got a fairly time intensive calling and had less time than before.  Yet despite that I still managed time to watch TV.  



I have decided that I need to cut out most of my TV watching.  This past week I have watched substantially less than I am used to.   This week is October break and I thought this would be the perfect time to start down the road to being fit again.  3 weeks ago I started doing yoga with a friend but that was only once a week.  Yesterday I power walked to my brother's house (He lives 2 miles from me) and today I rode to my parents' house and back (14 miles).  Last night I also decided to stop eating deep fried foods and sweets until Thanksgiving.  I'll need a slice of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.  Time to get healthy!


And you know what?  I feel pretty great!

AZ beauty

 I watched this a couple days ago on a friend's blog.  I didn't think too much of it at the time, but it keeps sneaking back into my mind.  Take a look.  Enjoy!

 

"Landscapes: Volume 2 is the second of a three part series (probably). Every frame of this video is a raw still from a Canon 5D2 DSLR and processed with Adobe software. In Volume 2 I again show off my beautiful home state of Arizona and I also made several trips to Utah. This video has some iconic landmarks that we have seen before. I felt that showing them again with motion controlled HDR and/or night timelapse would be a new way to see old landmarks."

New friends

On Saturday Tanner came home with these little guys.  They're only about 3 weeks old and less than 3 inches long.  They've been fun to have around.  

We're still trying to decide what to name them.  Suggestions?

greatest accomplishment ever!

To say that it's hard to surprise my husband is an understatement.  He takes great pride in this.  I on the other hand hate it.  

He can always guess what gifts are, what I'm thinking, where I am taking him.  Last Christmas I got him a keyboard and had it shipped to my parents' house.  He saw it under their tree twice before Christmas and I am quite certain he knew what it was.  I told him that if he guessed what it was (and was right) that I was going to send it back... 

In the 4 years we've been together (minus last week) I think that only time I managed to surprise him was with the engraving on the inside of his wedding ring.

That being said... Tanner's birthday was last week.  He turned the big 2-5.  

We had been meaning to re-roof our house and decided to start it last weekend (take off Friday and start putting on Saturday).  Tanner's birthday fell on that Friday.  Tanner isn't much for birthdays: actually he doesn't care for his at ALL.  I have been trying to change that...

About a week and a half before his birthday I decided that a surprise party was in order.  Considering his feelings about birthdays and how difficult it is to surprise him I was a little anxious.  We got up early to start taking the roof off.  I met him for lunch at Rigatoni's.  It was a pretty regular, boring birthday.  After work his dad and brother came over again to do a little more on the roof.  I went and borrowed my dad's truck to go get some shingles and tar paper from Home Depot. 

The party was scheduled for 8:00 at the swimming pool.  I know that if I just asked him to go swimming he would resist.  So I got my brother in on the plan.  He called Tanner and said that they were over swimming with my parents and wanted to give him a present before they headed home (they live a good 25 minutes from us).  My brother asked if Tanner was available to stop by to get the gift.  He said he could do that.  When he talked to me about it I told him I had my dad's truck with me and it would be great if we could swap cars back at the same time.  

I ran into trouble at Home Depot (that story to follow in another post) and 8:00 came and went.  We were behind schedule and Tanner was just going to go to the pool to get his 'present' from my brother without me.  I convinced him that I would be home very shortly from the store and would like to go with him to return my dad's truck.  We got to the pool around 8:30.  We pulled into the parking lot and there were cars everywhere (apparently there was an event going on [the pool shares a parking lot with a church building])  That actually turned out to be a great thing because he didn't recognize any cars.

I had texted my mom on the way over to the pool so she could get everyone ready for the surprise.  We walked in and everyone jumped out and yelled "SURPRISE!"  At first Tanner just looked around confused.  Then he saw all my family, his family, and friends and it sunk in.  He was actually surprised!  It was a miracle.  He was surprised!!!

We didn't get pictured of the actual surprise part.  In fact, I didn't even have my camera.  I did, however, get a few poor quality pictures on my phone:

Taking candles out of the cake.  I love how closely our 2 nephews in the background are watching!

Me eating some cotton candy.

One of our nephews munching away.   We had cake, nachos, watermelon, and cotton candy.  

Happy birthday to Tanner and happy surprising to me!