Ribbons?!

Last night, I needed to go to Hobby Lobby. Its card time again, so I was getting some supplies for them. Really, I had all my supplies, but I needed a late addition of some black ribbon. So, here I go, the only thing on my list is to get this ribbon, a simple black ribbon, one spool of it. I walk over to where the ribbon is, and there’s a sign, all ribbon is 50% off! WHAT?!

Of course I had to take advantage! So I wandered through the ribbons, finding good colors, finding fun ones, just looking. I just kept adding spools to my arms – if I had known that I was going to be getting this many ribbon, I probably would have grabbed a basket/cart, but I just figured I was there for one tiny item. So, after my arms were appropriately filled, I counted the spools of ribbons, and found that I had 17 in my arms. I hate to buy things in odd numbers, so I found one more color (cream, in case you wondered) to make it 18. Then, I made my way to the register (after grabbing some papers) and bought my ribbon, which came to about $20. So really, I got all sorts of awesome ribbon colors for a pretty dang cheap price. And now, I can add ribbons aplenty to my work! When I got home, I put all the ribbons on the table and took a picture, so that you all could see what I bought!

Lazy Cake Cookies

Another Monday, another baking day. This time, I scoured my Pinterest boards for a good thing, and I found this recipe that I had pinned a while ago, and it looks super easy. The name, of course, being Lazy Cake Cookies didn’t hurt my case. Last night, Husband and I ended up going to dinner with a friend of his from Canada, the Gentle Giant. Someday, I need to take a picture of myself with him, so you guys can see how big he is, because he’s pretty dang big. Anyway, so when I got home, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to make my treat, so I was extra glad I found this easy recipe. The recipe is this:

1 box (18.25 oz) of Yellow or White cake mix

2 eggs, beaten

5 Tb melted butter

2 Cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together, and put into a 9x13 pan. Bake for 20 minutes, cool, cut, enjoy.

See, easy as pie! (Pie’s actually not that easy, so I don’t know where that phrase comes from.) In case you wanted some photo evidence of me making it, here you go! Here’s the cookies before I put them into the oven:

And here they are, after I’ve cut them, and put them into my Tupperware.

I felt pretty good about them, and they are being eaten faster than hotcakes today! So I super recommend these to everyone, and they are delicious and easy and awesome.

Crafty Clark

Since my previous craft in my house was my BEE woodcrafts, I decided it was probably time for me to get another one, since it’s already been there for 2, almost 3 months. Wow, I hadn’t actually realized it was there for that long! So now I’m even prouder that I finally changed it up. So, I went to Crafty Wood Cutouts, and searched high and low for what I could do. It was mostly Fall items, or school stuff, and since I feel it’s too early for Fall, and I don’t care about school-related items, I had to do my own thing. So I chose to do my last name, and add a few accessories to really bring it home. So, I chose the paper, the paint, all that jazz, and then, 2 weeks later, I finally painted and decorated it.

The name went pretty well, I got the letters painted, and the papers attached to the letters that needed it, and this is what they looked like:

And then, the sunflowers. I wanted something cute to add that wouldn’t be too indicative of the weather/season. So, I chose sunflowers. They were adorable, so I took a picture of them at the store, to copy them well. Sadly, when I painted them, they looked AWFUL, and I tried to cover up the flower with the ribbon here, but oh man, these don’t look nearly as good as they did at the store. Here’s what mine turned out like:

Now, I’m not flipping out about the sunflowers too much, because they’ll be so high up that surely no one will be able to see them or criticize them. But I set it all up, and then took this picture, and I think it looks pretty good:

So, there it is my new craft of the month. I’ll keep this up until October or so, and then I’ll put something Halloweenish up there. Hopefully. Truthfully, I’d like to change it in September, but come on, that won’t happen. I seem to get to the wood store only when they’re doing stuff for the next season – I never get there in the right amount of time!

An Injury

Summer is nearing the end. I know kids are already back in school, so I realized that soon, the weather will not be warm, so I need to take advantage while I can. It was decided that today would be a hike – the river hike, which I’ve blogged of before. The weather was a little chilly as we were hiking up to the river – rain was sprinkling, the sun had gone away a little, so it was a little foreboding. As we were on the way up I thought, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this, but I still went anyway.

I think I should have stayed home. The river was a little fuller than last time, which is fine, but for some reason, I was extra clumsy today. As we were fording up the river, my foot slipped on a rock, and my knee and I decided to go different ways. Holy cow did that hurt, so we paused. As we were sitting there, and I was soaking my knee in the river (I thought the cold would keep some of the swelling down) PJ snapped a pic of me, I tried to look like I wasn’t in pain:

After a few minutes we got going again, and I was just limping a little bit. We got to the top, saw the waterfall, had a snack and some water, We got going back down, and when we were oh, about 5-10 minutes from completing the hike, I fell again – and hard. I slammed my broken knee yet again, and I was like, man I’m done for. I’ve had enough now. Here’s my knee in this moment:

Ouch, right? But I still had to finish, so I limped so hard back down the mountain and to the car. At some point, PJ stopped us to take a picture of the mountain, and I took the chance to just sit for a second, and revel in the pain my leg was in. Unbeknownst to me, PJ snapped a pic then. I feel so sad looking at it.

So then we made it to the car, and I took another pic of my knee, in case it changed:

It feels pretty bad. So, I just had to limp around for the day, I put some ice on it, and generally took it easy. Today, its not too bad, just a little painful. I took another pic, because I am documenting the heck out of this.

So, there it is. My leg. Its not broken, but sometimes it feels like it is. And of course, after church, I was sitting at the table, moved to get out, and knocked my knee on the leg, and then I wanted to die. But at least I got to have one last hike of the year!

A Horsie Adventure

A continuing adventure in birthday fun, Husband got me a horseback ride for my birthday present. After much debate as to where we’d go, we found a horseback riding place here in Utah County, just up in Soldier’s Hollow/Midway. So, off we went Friday morning. They introduced us to the horses, explained the rules, had us sign a waiver, that sort of thing. And then, I was introduced to my horse, Turtle: (Named for his coloring, not his speed, I was assured)

Looking pretty good, eh? He was a pretty good horse. Basically, the only rules we were given were: Give yourselves some room between horses, and don’t let them eat any of the grass or anything while riding. Of course, Turtle didn’t want to listen to either of these rules. It seemed he wasn’t happy walking unless his nose was practically touching the bum of the horse in front of me, and he wouldn’t stop eating, no matter how many times I said no while pulling up on the reins. What a card. Here are a few shots of horsie adventures:

Clearly, I look comfortable on the horse in that second picture. But then we got done, and I gave Turtle a pet, and we posed for another picture together:

As soon as we got off the horses, boy was my bum sore, and even now, hours later, I am still feeling it, as I’m sure I will be for the next few days! But it was a fun experience, and one I’m glad we did!

A Birthday Celebration

Well, kids, today’s the day. I turned a whopping 29 years old today. While I’m not dusting off a walker, I do feel like I am getting a little older and wiser, thank goodness. Anyway, onto the celebrations of the day. When I arrived at work, I was greeting with this amazing display of awesomeness, decorated by Chelle:

A ladybug theme, how fun is this?! I was a little spoiled this day, I got great presents, Chelle brought a delicious breakfast burrito for us to enjoy, we had a great lunch at Brick Oven, (in which the waiter guessed my age to be 30, even though no one had asked him to guess) and then a delicious treat of a banana split later:

During the day, Husband dropped by and brought me a fruit bouquet, the ladies at work and I enjoyed eating some of it:

Needless to say, by the end of the day, I was FULL of food, and didn’t think I could eat another bite. Then of course, for dinner, I ate a BLT – minutes the T, because tomatoes are gross. I closed out my day by playing a few rounds of Flippin’ Out, a game that Chelle got me that is so much fun:

If anyone wants to get together and play this game at some point, lets do it. It was so much fun.

Yes, the day was awesome, and I’m so grateful for them making my day great!

Crafty Box Time

I had a crafty moment last night, and had the time to act on it, which was nice. I got a few more of the boxes that I use to hold my cards. I have so many now, I keep wondering if I should come up with a different thing to use, a giant box or something. But I keep going with my card boxes, because I enjoy them. In my last card club, our cards were both birthday and baby. I didn’t have the supplies (read: paper) for a baby card, but after I bought them and got another box, I was good to go, so I made it last night. And here it is:

I like the way it turned out. I didn’t find a paper that was very baby-ey, so I tried my best with the one that I found. And now, my cards are all taken care of…for now. I have another card club meeting (I guess that’s what I could call it?) in another couple of weeks, so I need to jump on making my new cards, and making sure I have the supplies for making my next box.

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

I switched baking days this week. Tomorrow, the 18^th of August is National Cupcake Day. Did you hear?! NATIONAL CUPCAKE DAY! So, I made some cupcakes to celebrate the occasion. I made them a little early, because I wanted to celebrate with more people than just myself, so I brought the cupcakes to work. I made some fancy sounding ones this time, Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with a Nutella Buttercream Frosting. Here’s what they looked like, in the mixer being mixed:

This was such a weird dough – it was really thick, and it took some time to scoop into the cups, because it stuck to the spoons. But I liked the way they looked, and I didn’t overfill the cups, which I was worried about doing with this recipe. Thank goodness it turned out. Here’s what they looked like, as a final product:

Don’t they look fancy? I used the fancy frosting tip. And in case you want the recipe, here you go!

Cupcakes:

4 eggs

1 tsp Pure Vanilla Bean Paste, or 2 tsp of Pure Vanilla Extract

1 ¼ cups Buttermilk

3 cups cake flour

3 cups sugar

3 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2-3 cupcake pans with baking cups. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla bean extract, and buttermilk. Set aside until needed.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg mixture in 3 additions, beating well in-between each addition and scraping the sides as needed. Divide the batter among the prepared baking cups, only filling the cups up halfway. This is important, as the cups will overflow like crazy. Bake until an inserted toothpick comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes. Remove the cupcakes and allow to cool completely. While the cupcakes are cooling, make the buttercream.

Frosting:

1 ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

3 cups powdered sugar

1/8 tsp salt

2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

1 cup Nutella

Cream the butter in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Add the powdered sugar and salt and mix, gradually increasing in speed, until the sugar is fully incorporated. Add the vanilla and whisk until the mixture is light and fluffy, scraping the sides when necessary. When the buttercream is fluffy, add the nutella. Whisk until nutella is fully incorporated and the buttercream is light and fluffy again. Frost cupcakes, serve and enjoy.

See, not too hard. I liked making them, and thankfully they weren’t too hard. And now, we can all celebrate National Cupcake Day in style!

A Weekday Wedding

This week, my brother in law got married. Husband’s brother, married on Wednesday. It was a full day of all sorts of wedding festivities, and many, many pictures. I don’t really have all that much to say on the day, it was just a wedding, people have them all over the place, every day of the year. People dressed up, everyone looked pretty, and it was a flobbity gillion degrees outside. Sitting out there, for pictures and whatnot, I was just a pile of sweat, melting into the ground. Other than that, it was a pretty fun day, full of blisters on my feet from my sandals and the walking really quickly around Salt Lake. I leave you with some pictures from the day.

Husband and I, showing our serious sides.

This is my brother in law, we’re oh-so-pretty.

All of us girls, waiting for our turns at pictures

Everyone, bride, groom, etc, included.

There were a lot of great pictures taken later at the reception I really liked, but my phone wasn’t around to get the pictures. Hopefully I’ll get some copies of them later, and then you guys can see those too.

Vieve’s Video’s

This is easily one of the best videos ever. This helpful gentleman will do exactly as the video is titled, which is tell you how to catch a kangaroo. Watch, and we’ll discuss.

Seriously, how awesome was that? I can only imagine what’s going on in the kangaroo’s head as he’s getting caught. “La, la, la, here I am, having a great day, oh what’s this, it’s getting dark? It must be night, good night!” and went to sleep. And I laughed for like, 20 minutes. I hope you like too.

Miscellaneous Monday

When I came home from work on Friday, the sprinkler was on in the backyard. This isn’t that crazy, but when I looked at the surrounding yard…cement…etc around the backyard, I realized, holy cow that place looks soaked. And then I remembered that Husband had been turning on the water in the backyard as I was leaving for work. I called him right then to ask if the water had been on all day, and – of course – it had! So basically, we watered the backyard of our house for about 9 hours. That grass better be emerald green soon, and I really can’t wait to see my water bill for this month.

The Olympics, I’m sorry to say, are over. I watched a lot more than I have before, and was thrilled by it all. I watched a lot of track and field, because I found it so amazing. Now being super into running and the like, I know who most of the runners are; I know the lengths of races now, their sacrifices, etc. So watching those people sprint their hearts out was awesome. Over the course of the Olympics, I also watched volleyball, water polo, a lot of soccer (the women’s gold medal match was so amazing!), gymnastics, diving, BMX racing, mountain bike racing, pole vault, and high jump. There was so much to watch, and it was all so great. Even sports I don’t even care about usually I was into. Now that it’s over, I can’t wait for the Winter Olympics in 2 years, and am looking forward to the next batch of Summer Olympics!

Last summer, Husband and I went to Boise, to visit his friends. When we were there, we came across a farmers market that had the most delicious peach pie ever. So last weekend, Husband went to Boise again, and I told him that if he didn’t bring me this same pie again, I he’d be dead to me. So luckily, he brought me the pie! Yay! So this week, I decided to dig in, and this is how I started to eat it, with a fork:

Is there anything wrong with this? No, not to me. But Husband made fun of me for eating it this way like an animal (hey, I used a fork though) so then I cut it into slices and ate it like a civilized person. It didn’t taste as good as when I ate it with a straight fork, but it was still pretty delicious. I only have 1 slice left now. I don’t even want to eat it, because I don’t want my pie to be gone. I will mourn its loss.

Yellow Fever

I have a brother in law that’s getting married this week. I really should have been blogging about the misadventures regarding the wedding. There’s been dress drama, color drama, every sort of drama that just makes me laugh. Last Tuesday I finally got the dress I’ll be wearing to it, and then yesterday, PJ helped me attach a wide yellow ribbon to it, so that I had the yellow that everyone was wearing. Our dress choices that we were allowed to choose were yellow, white. or black. I’m wearing a black dress, but if we chose a black or white dress, we had to also wear something that would add a pop of yellow, hence my sewing on of a yellow ribbon. I was going to put a pic on here, but I realized that I’ll take one on Wednesday, when my hair is done and I look ok, instead of just a pic of the dress on the hanger. So hold on tight, kids, you’ll see it.

So, with the pop of the yellow on my dress, I decided to add some yellow in other places. I’ll be wearing a yellow flower in my hair, (not a real one) and I chose to paint my toes yellow. So, even though I painted my toes a week ago, I did them again!

Ta-daaaa! The color isn’t all that visible in the picture, but you can see them pretty well in real life. (to be fair, this pic was taken at like, 11 last night, with only the overhead light for light) And since I was on such a roll with the paintings, I painted my fingernails today!

Ta-daaaa! These are super visible, so now you have an idea of what my toes look like in real life. And now, I feel ready to represent the color yellow at the wedding. Now, is it overkill? Maybe. But will anyone be looking at me, instead of the bride? Absolutely not, so I feel pretty good about my choices.

A Medal, A Medal

Well kids, today was the Lindon City Days Dash yet again. This was my third year of running it. I love this race, because it’s so small that it’s not crazy, there aren’t a billion people here, and generally, the atmosphere seems so chill. PJ & I showed up at the right time (take that, Freedom Run!) and just hung out until the race started.

It started, and I won’t lie, I struggled. I thought I could do this with  no problems, but apparently, by body just wanted to quit. I did the first mile ok, but then, I seemed to start to shut down. I tried to keep my pace, and run, but people kept passing me. As people (Ok, the women) were passing me, I tried to gauge their age as they were by me. I’ve won first place in my age group (25-29) for the last two years that I’ve run this race, and I wanted to keep it going. So, the few women that passed me, I judged that they were older than I. I kept going, and then, when I was about a half a mile from the end, another passed me. As she did so, I looked over and I thought, for sure, that she was my age. I then tried my hardest to stay with her, and I did pretty good. As we rounded the last corner before the finish line, I tried to surge ahead. Which worked for about, oh, 1 minute, before my body was like, ‘yeah, nice try’ and then I slowed down a touch. She super passed me, and ended up beating me by about 20 seconds. So I finish, turn in my tag, and wait around, for PJ, then we stretch, etc.

As we were doing a cool down walk-around the parking lot, we see the race organizers putting all the race tags onto pieces of paper. I scootched closer, and see that the “Womens 25-29” is still empty – they hadn’t filled it yet! So, I just sort of…hung out until they put a tag on there. I would walk around, sneak a peek, and continue walking, until I saw them put a tag on there, then I leeeeeaned in to get a look at it, and…IT WAS ME! I screamed a little and did a dance of joy as I walked away from the table so that they wouldn’t know I had seen. (I don’t know if it was legal for me to peek!) Then, they were giving away the awards, and ta-daaa I got a medal! Here’s me, putting it on:

And here’s me holding my prize. Addition to the medal, I got 2 day passes to Lindon City Pool! I have since lost these. I remember myself putting them in to my car, but now I can’t find them. I’m still looking.

 

Oh! Also, PJ was the second fastest in our age group! I thought that was pretty cool, we are champs. I wish she had gotten a medal too. Anyway, after we waited for the rest of the “ceremony”, we left, and took this picture on the way to the car.

What a fun day, and a fun race, even though my body was rejecting the very notion of running.

Vieve’s Videos

Chelle actually introduced this video to me. We both really like this song, and of course sing it every time it comes on. This video makes me laugh so hard. I love seeing Olympic athletes cut lose and be silly, because all you see of them in the games is them with pressure on them, so they’re just a tiny ball of nerves, about to compete in the sport they’re known for. So this video is a treat, I hope you enjoy as well.

In an interview, they said that the parts on the airplane only took 1 take. Well, once to practice, and once more to film, all on the airplane to London. Go Team USA!

Colorado: Day 3, the End

Well, the vacation is over. Yesterday morning, we were getting ready to run. and we sat there, watching men’s tennis, the battle for the gold. I meant to just watch for a few minutes while we got ready to run, then all of a sudden, the game is over, Andy Murray won the gold medal against Roger Federer, and 2 hours had passed. It was fun, though! So we didn’t get to run, because we needed to get ready, to check out.

After a breakfast at Hot Cakes (sorry, no food pictures this time) we went and took a tour of Margaret Brown – or as she’s more commonly known – The Unsinkable Molly Brown. It was awesome, and interesting, I learned a lot about her and the Titanic. I recommend this tour to everyone. After the tour, we grabbed a quick cupcake from a place called The Shoppe (it wasn’t a very good cupcake), we hit the airport and came home. Returning to the Provo airport was awesome. It takes no time at all to get off, get through the airport, get your luggage, and get home. I was home 30 minutes after we landed. I loved it.

On Saturday night, on the way to the RSL game, I realized that I didn’t have my house keys with me. This normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but Husband had left to Boise this weekend, since I was gone as well. I realized, the possibility of the house being totally locked up was a possibility, so I gave him a call to get the status of the locked stuff in the house. Luckily for me, he had left a door unlocked. (Let’s not talk about how crazy it is to have a door unlocked while there’s no one home…that just makes people nervous.Things seem ok and in their place here) As I walked in, and got a drink, I realize, there is not a lick of food in the house. No bread, no yogurt, no milk, no…anything. So, I did a bad thing, I shopped on a Sunday. I know, I know, we shouldn’t, but I couldn’t figure out how else I was going to eat, and have stuff for breakfast/lunch today. But I’m forgiving myself, since it was a necessary evil.

And there it is. My weekend, in a 3-day recap. I had a great time, but of course, at the end, I was ready to come home, relax, and sleep in my own bed. With the exception of a loss of a soccer game, it was a pretty awesome weekend.

Colorado: Day 2

Ok, sports fans, here we go. Started this lovely Saturday with a run on a Colorado running trail that I didn’t really care for. But it was fun in that there were a hundred million prairie dogs on the trail, all hiding in holes. That helped distract from the distance and sun. After finishing, we got ready, watched some Men’s volleyball (sorry, team USA) and went to breakfast at a place called Sam’s No 3. It was pretty good. When I ordered a banana, they served it to me sliced up!

It tasted better this way, I swear. After eating, we headed over to the Denver Botanical Gardens. It was really pretty, and oh-so-hot. The weather forecast we saw gave us lower temperatures than we had. I thought it would be lovely weather, but it was hot. Here are some of the flowers:

They were pretty. As we walked by a tree, there was a squirrel eating nuts. I tried to take a picture, but I couldn’t get it focused close enough. This is me, sitting under a tree. Lookin’ good.

After the Gardens, we went to dinner at a bar (we didn’t know it was a bar, it was recommended to us from a friend) and onto the RSL game. Sadly, sadly, sadly, we lost. It wasn’t a fun game either, the RSL drummers showed up, so they drowned out any singing we did, and it was just loud and I didn’t care for it. After the game, we grabbed our customary ice cream. I got a large, I thought I was hungry.

I only ate until the cone, then had to throw it away, I was SO full. That made me sad. But after everything, and the long drive back to the hotel, yet another crashing commenced. Being on vacation makes me tired!

Colorado: Day 1

This year, our (mine and PJ’s) yearly trip to Colorado came a little early. Usually, RSL plays Colorado in October, so we go then. This time, the beginning of August. Weird, right? So we got to plan all sorts of different activities, since it was going to be warm, not a freezing-cold-lets-stay-in-the-hotel-all-day kind of trip. We flew out of Provo, which I really love. That airport is tiny! I like how easy it is to go through security there. So, we get into Colorado, and immediately picked up our rental car:

A Fiat! I’ve never even driven one of these, and I gotta say, I’m not that impressed with it. We stopped for breakfast at a place called Snooze, here’s my breakfast:

The one on the left is a pineapple upside down pancake, the middle is a donut pancake, and the right is a carrot cake pancake with cream cheese frosting. SO GOOD. Then, up to the top of Mount Evans – the highest paved road in North America. Here’s a pic from the top:

It was so nice up there. It was cold though, so I’m glad that we remembered to bring our jackets.

Here’s us at the top, thank you random stranger for taking our picture for us. We returned the favor, and took a pic of him and his son. On the way down, we ran into a giant group of these, and tried to get close to take a pic. Here’s an action shot:

There were so many mountain goats, it was awesome. Then we made the trip all the way down the mountain, and our car pinged, telling me it was overheating. I pull over, and hung out by the side of the road for 5 minutes, then got back in. When we were farther down the mountain, it pinged again. So we parked, and walked up and down Main Street, Idaho Springs. Fancy! It was like a mini Park City, full of expensive places, but with a mountainy look. We ate at this hole in the wall restaurant, but it was delicious. I had the meatloaf.

By the end of dinner and a gelato, the car was fine. After finding the hotel, we crashed. A pretty good first day, I’d say.

Feet, Feet, and Nothing But Feet

I painted my toenails again this week. I tried really hard to get some cute shapes, that sort of thing on them, but after trying for a quite a while, I had to finally take off the entire nail polish, paint again, and just added the dots. I like it, it’s simple.

Ta-daaaa! I like ‘em. I think I’ll keep these around for a bit.
And kids, I tried again. I did the feet thing again. I even tried using the Ziploc bags, so that I could walk around, like I was told. Well…I couldn’t walk around. I just had to sit there in the two Ziploc bags, because walking made the excess mouthwash stuff spill out.
So, I dutifully sat there for 30 minutes, washed it off, dried my feet, and applied a healthy amount of lotion, as required. And…there was really no change at all. The tops of my feet were soft, I’ll give you that. But the bottoms, the cracks, etc, were the same as always. Still cracky, still not soft.
I am a little disappointed with the shaving cream-mouthwash adventure, but that’s ok, at least I gave it a go, and got to see the results myself. It’s possible that because I wear flip-flops every day that my feet are beyond saving with a simple home remedy like this, and that’s ok. I’ll just do what I always do – wear my flip-flops, and get a pro pedicure once every few months, and they can slough all the dead stuff off themselves.