Baby Shower For Karen

As I was writing that title, one thought led to another and soon after I had a mental of image of umbrellas and raining babies. How odd...

Anyhoo!! This is my college roommate, Karen, and she is expecting her first! They are naming him Weston. That's her opening my present:

Isn't it cute??? Yeah, yeah I know - I'm fabulous! I have sorta kinda made my trademark baby gift for my closest friends a hooded towel with the babies name embroidered on the bum, with other baby bath stuff. She is decorating his room in jungle babies so there is a little monkey hanging off a branch next to the 'W'. I thought I was pretty clever.

I thought this shirt was AWESOME - I want my baby to wear famous Michael Scott sayings!!!:

My friend, Lou (ha ha ha - she'll either kill me or laugh at this...if I'm not here after nextweekend that it obviously wasn't the latter):

And the three of us - Becky, Karen and Me!:

I'm super excited for her! She is such a great person and I love her to death.

See How They Grow

My plants have grown from this:

To this! (pardon the bad lighting):

They have their white blossoms on and look!!!!:

Soon I will have little ballerina's dancing in the wind...I love Spring/Summer!!!!

Spring Fever!!

I need the warm weather!! I am craving it badly!! I want to see things grow and get green and have summer fun!

While the weather was good, albeit a little cold at times, I spent Friday night and all day Saturday weeding out my back lawn so that the grass can fill in. It took FOREVER and I almost thought that my back would never recover and I don't have feeling in my thumb still!! But it felt so good to get out and dig and weed that I will happily deal with it!!

And I planted!! Two weekends ago, my mom found a stellar deal on Bacopa and Fuschia!! These little starters were three for $1!!! What a steal! So we bought a ton for our potters:

And I put in some Jiffy Pots:

And set them in my window box!:

I love to see things grow. The Bacopa's will get cute little white flowers all over them and the Fuschia looks like this:

They look like little ballerina dancers and I love to look at them dance in the wind :)

Riding The Ponies

I grew up riding horses and one of our family activities was to go out to the desert and do an all day ride. It's super fun. We don't make it out to the desert so much anymore however, my dad takes the horses to Yellowfork Canyon in Herriman (only a fifteen minute drive from the house) and goes riding a couple times a week. I love go riding and I don't get to go up the canyon often. So Friday, since Paul was leaving on a Scout camp, I headed out with my dog and we went riding with my parents.

This is Bacardi right before we started off - he was super excited, as you can tell:

It was such a great night for riding.

This is my horse, B.J. My rodeo horse was sold a couple years ago and recently I took up training this guy. He is actually the baby of my other rodeo horse that I used for Barrel Racing.

It was Bacardi's first time on a ride and he had a lot of fun being out where he can run a muck with the other horses. He was pretty funny cuz he wanted to be at the head of the line the entire time but if we started and he didn't get ahead, he would be stuck at the back of the line until there was an open pasture where he could run out and get in the front. He didn't figure out that he could just go off the trail and run through the trees and bushes to get ahead. I could see him try and bypass me, but then a bush would come up and he would fall back behind. Such a dork.

The scenery was beautiful and the weather was fantastic:

When we got back to the trailer and I had B.J. unsaddled, he started stomping his feet and snorting at the meadow behind the trailer. My dad looked a little closer and he found that there were deer just chilling about 20 feet away from us. So I krept to the edge of the meadow and started taking pictures. The deer actually took a few steps toward me! I was pretty happy to get an even closer picture since I wasn't even ten feet from him....and then in rushes my dog. Dumb dog. We usually see tonz of deer but this time we only saw a couple.

Safely Gathered In Rocks My Food Storage World!

Thanks to this blog:

We are on our way to becoming Safely Gathered In!

Paul and I have been buying bulk items at case-lot sales (thanks to Macy's gigantic case lot and food storage extravaganza's!) to add to our long-term food storage, but I have always felt overwhelmed at the thought of getting everything I needed, how I was going to make meals out of pantry-friendly only food and learning how to make bread out of your own wheat and all the good stuff. It was just too much to wrap my mind around at the time and when that happens, my mind shuts down and automatically files it to "Later." I kept putting it off and adding to my storage in cans for the time being. But then I happened upon these ladies awhile ago and I am hooked!! I love that they have made it so easy! It's like 'Food-Storage for Dummies!' and it's GREAT!! I have been so enthralled with all the information they give and the recipes they share and the way they let you follow along with gathering and rotating long-term storage items and emergency car kits.

I am working on getting my three-month supply together. I love the plan these girls came up with! I finally don't feel overwhelmed (well...as overwhelmed. I still have to think about where to stick all of this stuff)! I have my menu's all planned out and have figured out everything we would need to make all the meals on those menus and have even created me a little system (although I just discovered they have one as well) so I know what I have and what I still need. I have had so much fun getting it together and even found recipes of my own that will work. I am excited to test drive all the recipes I haven't used yet. Now I can add to my 3M Supply a little every time I get groceries and watch out for sales on the items we need. I have never been so excited about food-storage in all my adult/married/responsible life!! Over time, I plan to get myself a wheat grinder and become a Master Wheat Bread Magician and other equally cool (or dorky but still important) stuff!

I am so excited to make myself a cardboard oven and cook us up a meal or desert! Ooohhh cobbler would be delicious. I think I just might do that! Peach Cobbler.

I invite everyone to go over to this blog and read up on everything. I am sure that even those who are better prepared than most can still find some useful tips and information. They have wonderful 'How-To's' and give step by step instructions and pictures on everything. And March's Ensign has several articles on Self-Reliance if any one hasn't read it yet and would like to get themselves psyched about food-storage. I read those articles and found this blog at about the same time - it was like a heavenly thump on the head and an answer to my prayers!

The Melting Pot Date

Paul and I have a tradition where every year in February we go to The Melting Pot to celebrate a few special occasions. It's one of our favorite traditions and it's our #1 most favorite place to eat. We love the atmosphere, the cozy booths, the laid back pace (it takes almost three hours) and of course, the food. We look forward to going and getting as stuffed as we can every time! We start off with our cheese fondue, then the California salads, then our main course (the Pacific Rim cooked Coq au Vin style) and lastly, chocolate!! Yeah!!

This stuff is seriously soooo good. It's worth every penny we spend!!

They have this cocktail sauce for your shrimp and a little bit is a big kick. So one thing Paul and I do every year is see how much we can load onto a shrimp and then video tape the reaction. This stuff will clear your sinuses, make your eyes water and threaten to make your brain pop out of it's skull. It's so fun. I have vids but it's so dark in the restaurant that you really can't see us very well. Which is too bad.

Yummy, yummy, yummy I got chocolate fondue in my tummy....

We pretty much get the same menu items every time but we always try a new chocolate. This year was white chocolate amaretto. So flippin' good!! I almost died from the pleasure in my mouth.

And when it's all done, this is what we feel like:

(I can stick my stomach out pretty dang far when I am full and I always tell Paul that I am pregnant and rub my belly like pregnant women always do in movies. Then Paul freaks out. I never get sick of it).

My New Love Affair

I'm in love with my new Dyson DC17 Animal. Can I just say WOW ??? No joke. This thing is packin' some serious suction. I decided before Christmas that my vacuum was no longer fit to be cleaning the floors in my home. I had to get a vacuum that I knew would do the job and you never hear anything bad about a Dyson so it became the object of my desire. So we decided that we would get it after Christmas (it was really hard to wait) and then I could be happy knowing that every speck of dirt and every strand of dog hair was slurped up into this wonderful invention.

I even did the Dyson test. I vacuumed my floors before I left to go get it (and I am an anal vacuumer...I go over it like three times) and then when I got home I vacuumed again and Holy Mother of Suction!! it sucked up TONZ more...a little less than what you see in the canister now cuz I have vacuumed since then.

I know - isn't it gross?? And that furry little creature sniffing out my vacuum is the cause of such drastic measures toward cleanliness. I love him dearly but I CAN NOT have his hair all over my house without literally going insane and that little bastard is only in the house for a few hours of the day. He does some serious damage.

Some Change Is Good

Lately I have been going through some physical changes and they have been awesome for me. I feel super happy about my life right now and one of the things I did was FINALLY chop my hair off!! I have been planning to chop it for over a year now and have been growing out my bangs since last March so that I could achieve the hair cut in mind.

So here is me Tuesday morning:

I arrived at my sisters salon and she was still convinced that I was going to break down crying or shat in her chair once my hair came off.

But here is my hair...on the floor:

And me happy as can be and not crying:

Sadly, I didn't have enough to donate to Locks of Love. My stupid hair reaches a certain length and it will never grow past it and my sister needed so much to work with so it just had to come off. I was really bummed about that because I was determined to donate my hair.

I was really really really ready for it all to come off. I had had enough of it being in my way and getting caught in zippers and snagged under my purse and pulled when I put the phone down at my job and it was sure a pain in the ars when it came to sex...I just don't think my sister realized how really ready I was.

Here is I with some color lifter on my head:

Cute, huh? We had to do that twice because my hair was so dark and it still didn't get light enough to do the color that I wanted. So to forewarn you, I am not the blond that I was hoping to be yet but I will be soon enough. I've waited this long...I can wait a little bit longer!

And here is the Master at work!

And then the final look:

I am not crazy about the color but again...it's just a step in the direction I am going! And I haven't missed all that hair for a single second since its been gone!! My poor husband doesn't even recognize his own wife anymore...but don't feel sorry for him! I think he likes it <wink, wink>!!

Announcing....

Yay for paying off debt! Besides our home and Paul's schooling (ouch!), we are totally debt free and I love it! I bought a 2001 4-Runner two years ago when my little red car finally drew it's last breath and it felt really good to walk into the bank last Friday and say good-bye to monthly payments (well all except the huge chunk of change that is missing from Savings account...that didn't feel good but it's worth it!) It makes me feel really fortunate to be able to do such a thing in a failing economy and I also feel really grateful that my husband is a hard working, motivated, smartie-pants who is a great provider and has a great job with great employers. It could be a lot different for us and I'm so grateful we have what we do. Paul: Here's looking at you, kid {wink}.