resolutions

I've never truly made New Year's resolutions. Long-term goals are hard for me to work on and keep track of, and I like my rewards to be immediate. There have been a couple years where I've made some half-hearted 'resolutions' that were abandoned before the first month of the year was over.

But as this year is winding down, I keep thinking about the same few things that I want (and need) to work on. And the new year is a perfect opportunity to get a fresh start on things... When I have everything sorted out in my mind I'll post my "Official Resolutions" on here.

p.s. I'm thinking I need a way to remind myself about my new goals so I don't forget about them - maybe print them out and put them in a cute frame somewhere I'll see every day? Hmmm... I'll get back to you on that one.

the monson bros

current obsessions..

So to start off I'd just like to say that I've been wanting to post about this nail polish ever since I bought it earlier this week. Buuut, between staying up late watching Netflix and sleeping in in the morning, who has time to blog? ;)

I saw this little beauty at WalMart a couple weeks ago but didn't want to fork over the 3 dollars it cost, so I went home with nothing but boring groceries. But I kept thinking about it and thinking about it and finally went back to pick it up. So glad I did. It's called 'Minted,' and my only complaint is that it's a little soft, so you can get imperfections easily. But I love wearing it because it feels festive without being all red-green-and-white.

I don't like to "color between the lines" when I paint my nails - it takes too much patience!

I've been drinking this hot chocolate every night without fail for the past week and a half (I'm super healthy like that). I'm usually not a huge fan of chocolate-mixed-with-fruit flavored things (except chocolate oranges), but I'm smitten with this stuff. And, for a little something extra, I like to add just a bit of hazelnut coffee creamer to the mix. Soooo. Goood.

Lastly, I just can't get over my latest purchase. I've been needing a recipe box for a long time but have been kind of picky about the kind I want - my favorite ones are the retro metal ones, so I look on eBay from time to time to see if I can find one I like for relatively cheap. Well, I scored this baby for only 7 dollars - including shipping! I haven't even put it away yet (it's still sitting right here on my computer desk) because every time I look at it, it makes me happy.

Well, I'm off to play Puerto Rico with the Mr. and my little brother.

Wish us luck. This game is intense.

You should try it sometime.

my my

So lately I've been on a blog-reading kick and not so much of a blog-posting kick. The more blogs I read the more boring and unaccomplished I feel, so I've been avoiding posting on here. I hate when I let insecurities take hold in my brain, because it's hard for me to shake them.

Especially stupid insecurities caused by blogs - blogs! For pete's sake... Oh, me.

Anyway, I'm done with Fall Semester! WhoooohoOO! My first semester in the Rad Tech program is down, I'm 20% of the way through the program and going strong! Well, at least I think I'm going strong, we'll see how strong I feel when I see all my grades. I think I did pretty well. Most of the work is tests and I'm a good test taker, so that doesn't stress me out TOO much. BUT! I have this problem where I don't study very much for tests and then after the test I forget whatever I've studied, so that will probably bite me in the butt when the program's over and I have to take the test to get my license.

I really have such a bad memory, it stresses me out and makes me feel like an old geezer.

Speaking of old geezer's (not really), my little brother Joseph got his mission call to Bangkok, Thailand! I'm so excited for him, and nervous, but mostly excited. He leaves in January to go to the MTC. I want to take him out to get some Thai food before he leaves, but don't know of any good places. Any ideas? Are there any Thai connoisseurs out there? To be honest, I'm kind of scared to eat Thai, I think my picky taste buds won't be open to the new experience. I guess we'll see.

So let me know if you know of any good places, or if you want to come. =)

happy thoughts

- I don't think I've ever enjoyed Fall as much as I have this year. It's been lovely - the colors make me want to cry. But I don't - at least not in front of anyone. ;)

- Kristofor downloaded this soundtrack for me from one of my favorite movies of all time, the Darjeeling Limited. My current favorites are numbers 3, 7, 8, and 19. I can't stop listening.

- I'm about two thirds of the way through all the clinical hours that I need this semester.

- Kristofor and I went to Famous Dave's last night. The meal was so delicious, I was happy the rest of the night just thinking about it. Mmmm, BBQ.

- I made a batch of coconut/oatmeal/chocolate chip cookies tonight - they're for Kristofor, hence the coconut. I wish that meant that I didn't eat any, but I probably had more than him. Awww. =(

- I've spent the past week watching the first 2 seasons of Parks and Recreation - folks, I think I may like this show more than The Office. And that's saying something. I'm seriously considering watching all of it again this week.

- This past week at the hospital we made Halloween decorations using old x-ray films - we cut out a bunch of bats, a witch, a black cat, etc. and hung them up all around our department - yay for Halloween!

- I bought this shirt last week for our little photo shoot and have been loving it - especially the price I got it for.

- Farr's Fresh ice cream - words cannot explain how much I love this place. Milkshakes from a drive through no longer tempt me, I only want to go here.

- I saw Leo on Wednesday.. (For those of you who don't know, Leo is my parents 10 y.o. Maltese. Earlier this week he went to the vet and got all but 3 of his teeth pulled.) I gave him a treat and after he swallowed he kept... gumming. Like smacking his lips together, except it was more just smacking his gums together and licking. I laughed so hard and tried to get him to do it again, but he got too excited and just kept barking instead.

Little poop.

sneakster

Here is a little (literally, they are small) sneaky peak of the pictures my sister Brein took of me and Kristofor.

Like I said before... LOVE them! =)

(This is only half of what she's got posted on her website)

We went to this really cool old (built in 1906) concrete factory that's falling apart - people come paint and graffiti all over it. So, we decided to bring some paint and have some fun with it ourselves.

(We stopped by a corn field on the way home. I really like the colors in this pic, they make me happy.)

It was Kristofor's brilliant idea to paint a thought bubble. Tee heeeee.

^_^

psyched!

You guys - I am so excited. Last Sunday Kristofor and I went up to Brigham to have my super talented sister Brein take some pictures of us and she just posted a preview on her photo blog. I LOVE them!!!

Take a look! Feel free to leave her a comment, too, if you like.


It was so fun. And they turned out so good.

I am so happy.

=)

what a goof..

The Mr. and I are getting our pictures taken this week....

I think I might need to bribe him in order to get some good shots.

crafty crafty

This past summer when I went to IKEA, I got a new bedspread. I love it - it makes me happy. But it's kind of plain, so I wanted a new pillow to go with it. I had a hard time convincing myself that spending money on a decorative was worth it, so I decided to make my own.

I already had a pillow form and some Wonder-Under so I just went to Wal-Mart and bought some fabric. The total cost of making this pillow cost me less than $2.

(I got the silhouette from Google Images)

Ta-Da!

The End.

=)

spooooky

Every day (or ever other day, let's not get too specific), I go out to check on my little garden...

Most of the plants I've grown this year are gone - spinach, green beans, lettuce, a few radishes.. But I have some cucumber plants with bunches of cute little cucumbers growing, ever so slooooowly. I check to see if, magically, one has grown to picking size over night. I swear, it happened once, with my first and only cucumber of the year - and it tasted divine. It hasn't happened since then, though, and I doubt any of my other cucumbers will reach maturity before autumn decides to really settle in. Even so, I go check on my plants, pick a stray weed, will the cucumbers to grow big, and fast, before hurrying back inside.

However.... On Wednesday I went outside as usual, checked my tomato plant, checked the cucumbers, pawed around for a couple strawberries, and had the impulse to pick a carrot. See, I didn't thin my carrots very well, so most of them have been pretty stumpy and small. I usually just leave them alone hoping they will grow long and slender so I can give some to my dad and maybe keep a few to eat myself.

This is the carrot I picked.

A little orange monster - perfect timing for October. I though it looked like a ghost, so I drew him a face. I've kept him in the fridge because Joseph wants me to keep him Halloween (don't ask me why), but he's getting kind of soft. So I thought I'd take a picture of him for my blog, before he gets too old, and also take a second to say:

HAPPY AUTUMN!

Aren't you so glad fall has taken it's time to get here?

Most posts to come, soon. Promise.

you can paint it any color

Lately I have been:

Doing homework and taking what feels like a boatload of tests.

Picking these (I didn't think they'd keep coming out this late in the year but I picked a handful today, so I can't complain).

Waking up at this time 3 days a week.

And missing these goofy people (aka my parents), who officially moved out of the house yesterday. Even though I saw them today, I miss them already. They're only one hour away which isn't really that far... But when I've been seeing them every day, it's going to be hard.

up date

I just wanted to hop on my little blog and write a quick little update of me and my honey.

Fall semester began 2 weeks ago. Kristofor is going into Health Information Management and I, of course, am doing the Radiology program. He has 12 credit hours and I have 16, so this may get a little tricky for us! I have school one day a week for 4 hours and I go to my clinicals for three 8-hour days a week. The hospital I'm at is about an hours drive away, so that's not really any fun, but I'm just so glad that I got in that so far I can't complain. I really love the hospital I'm at - for one, everything is nice and new (it's been open for less than a year), and I have yet to meet anyone rude. My clinical instructor is about as nice as anyone can get, although he does like to play little pranks on me and the other first year student. We're gullible. But it's fun. All the other techs are really patient and nice, they take the time to answer all my questions and explain things to me. I feel a bit overwhelmed with all there is that I have to learn, even just knowing my way around the hospital, but I'm trying to be patient with myself. Sometimes have to remind myself that I'm not going to remember everything right away.

My parents are for sure moving. Which means a lot of things, but basically we need to find a new place to live sometime at the end of the year. My parents will start training for their new job in just a few weeks. And I'm glad they found something and feel good about it, but I'm really going to miss seeing them every day. =(

Life right now consists of homework and watching movies in our down time. And the occasional trip to Jamba Juice.

2 of my loves

Needless to say, I reaaallllly love my Kristofor.

But, I also love Ogden. I've been living here for about 5 years, and it's really grown on me. I feel like I own it. Like it's mine. I've never felt like that about a city before.

You see, I've had these weird almost-relationships with the places I've lived. I love my hometown it because it's my hometown, not because of anything cool - like, if I wasn't born and raised there, would I even like it? I'm not sure. When I lived in Nanaimo, I felt like I was staying over at someone's house - I was comfortable and liked it, but somewhere deep down I had this unsettled feeling because I wasn't home. I also felt like there was no way I could like Canada, because if I did then that would be betraying Utah! Duh!! ;)

Anyway, I feel completely at home in Ogden. Like I've adopted it - or maybe it's adopted me, I don't know. There are some pretty big changes coming my way. Like the kind that are scary and slightly exciting but mostly you dread them because who likes change, anyway? Yeah. So, with these changes we'll be moving.. I'm not sure where to, yet, but hopefully we can stay in Ogden.

Because, really.

I love it.

(and Kristofor)

longest post everrrr

After my big brother Ben saw my fish painting, he told me he wanted me to do a painting for his office. He told me the colors of the wall and carpet in his office, about how big he wanted it, and that he wanted it simple like the fish one. And that's all. After that, I had full artistic license, or whatever - which is kind of nice, and kind of scary!

So I'm going to share with you my thought process of deciding what to do for the painting, how I did it, etc. etc. etc., and finally, the end result!

*I draw everything in Microsoft Paint (fancy!) before I paint - it helps me decide on everything from composition to colors. Please forgive me.*

First, I decided I wanted to do these little bumpy wave pattern things because they were part of the pattern on one of my dresses and while wearing it a few weeks before Ben "commissioned" me, I decided I really like the pattern and wanted to put it to use somehow. So, I thought, perfect way to put this pattern to use!

So I drew it up in Paint . . .

. . . and decided I wanted to do this for the background of the painting. So then I just had to decide what the main image of the painting would be. I went to Google Images and typed in random things that came to my head. I'm very productive like that, you see. Finally, somehow, I don't know exactly why, I decided to do a tree. So I started typing in "Tree silhouette" and "tree wall decal" and things of that nature to come up with some images that I liked. These are they:

Using these trees for inspiration, here is the first tree I drew in Paint:

[Yes, it's hideous!] [don't you love the bird??]

Then, after feeling sad and like this painting was going to really suck, I tried again, more copying the little orange tree. I Paint-ed this:

Okay, things are looking up! Before getting any further on this project, I decided to Facebook-send Ben the Paint-ing above, and below, and see what he thought.



I told him this was a subject matter and composition thing only - the colors could be changed.

He told me he liked the portrait oriented one better, so next up was deciding colors (the fun part)!

So then I Facebook-sent him all these different color schemes to give him an idea of what he might like - he liked the blue one (one of the walls of his office is a pretty sky blue), so that was that!

**Just a little side note, my favorite one was the green and yellow one - oh well!**

Next step - buying the supplies. I bought an 18 x 24 inch canvas from Michaels, and the paint. Oh, the paint. I would be using acrylics, as always. And I knew I didn't want to go around mixing my own colors - if I ever need to replicate the same color again, it's nearly impossible. So, I spent a while grabbing a bunch of different blues and seeing how they looked together to decide on the final contenders.

I ended up using all of these except one color - it was a bit too green.

Also, I learned a valuable lesson about paint - the cheap stuff is cheap for a reason! You have to spend a lot more time painting to get a solid looking coat, so next time I am definitely spending the extra quarter to get a little better quality paint. My favorite of the 3 types I got was Americana.

Next I had to get my design onto the canvas so I could get started painting! It was a long and dumb process, but basically I drew my design onto some poster board as a rough draft before doing anything to the canvas. Then I cut it out so I could arrange it on the canvas. The hardest part was arranging the leaves. I cut out tons of leaves in 3 uniform sizes (except I made 1 BIG leaf), 2 big ones, some mediums, and tons and tons of the smallest ones. I arranged them all on the poster board first, would take a picture, and rearrange them until I got an arrangement that I liked.

This is the final arrangement - very messy. I colored the leaves blue so I could see them better.

So I took this picture and then took the cut-outs and put them on the canvas, trying to get everything in the same place it was on the poster board - this is where taking a picture came in handy.

***It was during this process that I realized doing the bumpy wave pattern would be too much work! So, lazily, I ditched that idea.***

After I had the cut-outs where I wanted them, I traced them, lightly, with a regular old pencil onto the canvas (which I had painted white earlier). I decided which leaves I wanted which color (to try to avoid getting any of the same colors right next to each other), and started painting!

Basically, I sat and watched a million Netflix movies while I painted. I don't know exactly how many hours it took me in total, but from start to finish - Ben telling me he wanted a painting, and me actually giving it to him - it took 2 months. But most of that was me procrastinating and letting it sit.

Without further ado,

The finished product - TA DA!!!

I had a lot of fun doing this project. It's the first time I've ever painted anything for someone other than myself, so I liked it a lot. =) I went and saw it hanging in Ben's office the other day and it looks pretty good in there!

Sorry for the overload of information and pictures. =)

blur

My sister Brein says one of her favorite things is color. My dad thinks it's pretty silly for color to be considered a favorite thing.

But really . . . doesn't color just make everything better? Happier?

g i v e a w a y

Hey all,

My lovely and talented oldest sister Brein is having a giveaway on her photography blog. Go ahead and enter . . . I know I'm going to!

GO HERE.




p.s. It ends Wednesday night, so be sure to enter before then!

<3

you're waiting for a train

Have you seen this movie? What did you think?

I went last weekend and LOVED it! I had high expectations and wasn't let down at all. It had so many different elements to it that worked together perfectly - action, cool special effects, drama, humor, and lots of . . . mind work? It was a thinker, that's for sure. Not to mention I loved the actors, with Marion Cotillard (that woman can do no wrong) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt being my favorites.

I thought the ending was perfect. What about you? Do you have an opinion either way about what happened (with the top), or are you ambiguous? I like to think it fell. But that's the beauty of it, it could go either way.


I want to see it again. Soon.

ice ice baby

My summer goal of getting a Sno Cone is complete x 2. I couldn't decide on a flavor so I got two small ones. One is Raspberry Colada, the other is Popeye - whatever that is, right? There was a flavor called Rock Star - what the!? What does a rock star taste like? Do I even want to know?

One summer when I'm filthy rich I'm going to buy a Sno Cone in every flavor there is so I can taste all the weird sounding flavors that I usually don't want to risk spending my quarters on, because what if I don't like it? Then I can choose a favorite and every summer after that I won't have to spend so long deciding what flavor to get.

Oh, I have such grand plans for my life.

slee po ver

On Friday me and my sister

Brein decided to have a sleep over. I was so excited I kept telling everyone at work. "I'm having a sleep over with my sister in Brigham today." I felt like a little girl asking her parents if she can sleep over at her cousin's house.

So I left my man at home, and drove to Brein's. Her husband and son went camping, so Brein decided to stay home with little London - and me.

Friday night all we did was TALK. We were going to watch TV or something . . . but got to talking, turned the TV off, and didn't shut up until we fell asleep! I don't even want to know how late we stayed up. The next day when Brein's husband Doug called to see how things were going he asked what we did last night:

"We just talked." It was grand. I love talking with my sisters. We can talk about anything under the moon.

The next morning I woke up to London, who didn't know I would even be there, running around. I probably creeped her out, sleeping where her dad usually sleeps. She warmed up to me pretty quickly though, so we got ready and went to go eat some waffles!

Can you say CHEESE?!

(waiting for our food!)

After we got sick from eating too-crispy-but-delicious waffles, we grabbed some Pepsi and hit the road. Our destination - IKEA! I've been wanting to go there for forever. I've been twice and that's just not enough. I have their catalog and am always looking through that and their website (which you pretty much can't buy anything through) and there was a certain something I was looking for...

A daughter! Just kidding, lame joke, London just loved running around all the little kid beds and trying to climb into each one. Every time she would see one, say "bigger bed" and hop on in! Well, she was really saying "big girl bed" but the way she said it I kept thinking she was saying something else.

This is the present London picked out for herself. Yes. It's a pillow. She loved that thing. Did she want a stuffed animal? No. A toy? No. She wanted a pillow. And she played with it the whole way home. She would sit it on her lap and put her toys on it.

I was kind of jealous.

But I got something else for myself...

This. It's 2 pillow cases and a quilt cover. Or something like that. All I know is I want to pair it with funky colored sheets and colorful pillows. I like it much better up close, and in person.

I just love that place. It's so much fun looking through all the cool things there. A lot of it's stuff that I have no use for while living with my parents, so the bedroom stuff was my favorite part of the store (if you can call it a store).

We loaded up our treasures and headed home. Brein got some curtains to use for closet doors at home, and she even let me boss her into having us put them up while I was still there. And it's a good thing, too - she doesn't have arm muscles like I do. ;)

All in all, I think the world could use more sleep overs. And more sisters. And more IKEAs.

unorganized matter aka my thoughts

It's funny how much I love pictures taking while driving - or in my case, riding in a moving car. I wouldn't take a picture while driving, no wayyyy, not me.....*cough* Anyway, I don't know why I like them so much. They're usually really blurry. And the composition nearly always sucks. But I love taking them, and going back and looking through them. Like the colors in the one above just make me happy. Little things like that.

Summer is lovely, as always. I have a ton of things I want to do and not enough time to do it. I have some really fun projects in the works right now - I'll post pictures when (if) I finish.

On my list of things I MUST do this summer, #1 is getting a Sno Cone. I haven't had one since who knows when, and I'm determined. This summer will not pass without me eating one.

Life right now is so relaxing and lazy. I love it.

I think it's funny when people name their blogs "The Exciting, Crazy, Hilarious, Out-Of-Control Life of the ________ Family!!!" Because usually their posts are just as normal as everyone else's, and there isn't any craziness. I'm sure there's more going on in their life than what they post, but still. If I had to name my blog something like that it would be more like "My Ordinary, Ho-Hum, Laid-Back Life." But don't get me wrong, I like life this way.

And I'm going back to it riiiiiight now.

Jackson Hoooole!

First of all, the drive up to Jackson was simply lovely. Kristofor and I drove with his brother and family. We watched movies almost all the way up and back. The ride didn't seem too long going up, but coming back . . . . that's another story!




The first night we went downtown and walked over to the Town Square for the shootout.


(I really love these arches...they're elegant and rugged all at once.




Okay, so. First of all I would like to say that after staying up all night packing and being in a van for 4 or 5 or however many hours, I was looking pretty scruffy. During the shootout a 'cowboy' asked me and another girl to dance. We both shook our heads. He said, "Come one, I need someone to dance with me!" So I took his hand and went and danced in front of everyone! Including my in-laws - not embarrassing at all!!











Kristofor wanted to get a picture of me and my new beau after the skit was over, so we did. I'm pretty sure he told me his name was Tarzan, and I wouldn't surprised if it is. But maybe my hearing was off - it's probably something normal like Tyson, but I like to think I danced with a cowboy named Tarzan.

It sounds cool.


This is the only picture I got of the hotel. Kristofor and his very own man bag!! Not really, it's just the case for the portable DVD player we took with us.


The next day we went to the alpine slide with a bunch of Kristofor siblings and their kids. To be honest, it was too expensive for my taste but I've always wanted to go down one, so I sucked it up and did it anyway. I'm so glad I did, it was so fun!


It had rained that morning so we had to wait a while for the slides to dry.


Waiting patiently....


Some of the kids had a hard time waiting patiently... 3 different kids got sent to time out at the same time.


On the way up! That's our nephew Blake in front of us.


The view from the ski lift.


Us on the way up!


Sorry, no pictures of anyone going down. I stuffed my camera into my jacket pocket and forgot about until...


We decided to get a picture of Kristofor's fingers. He went down right after me and I was going too slow for his taste so he would brake and wait for me to get ahead, and then book it as fast as he could and catch up to me. One corner he was going to fast because he almost flipped over and reached out to try to steady himself and this is what he got. It looked worse after it scabbed over. Yuck.



That night we went to see the Bar J Wranglers. It was the highlight of the trip! I've never seen them before and it was so much fun. We had a chuckwagon dinner with potatoes, beans, applesauce, I got ribeye steak, corn bread, spice cake and lemonade. It was delicious! Then the Wranglers performed and they were way more impressive than I expected. Really, it was tons of fun.


For some reason I didn't take any pictures of Wednesday. We just relaxed all day. Suntanned, went swimming, took a walk, watched TV, went out to eat. Which reminds me - if you go to Jackson and are in the mood for one of the best burgers you will ever eat, go to Billy's Burgers. The prices are surprisingly reasonable, you watch your food being cooking right in front of you, the service is fast, and it's JUST. SO. GOOD.


The morning we left we checked out of the hotel, went downtown and walked around just a bit before leaving. We went to a cute little candy shop and got some straight candy cane things... (We were hoping they had some of our favorite Canadian candy bars but they only had 2 kinds, and they weren't ones we liked. Oh well!)




A big giant THANK YOU to Kristofor's parents who gave this trip to us for Christmas. I've been looking forward to it since then and it exceeded all my expectations! It was such a fun trip, and so needed. Kristofor and I haven't been on a vacation like that together EVER, so we really appreciated it.

It was lovely. THE END. =)