Card Boxes–Birthday and Otherwise

Today, I had a bit of time on my hands. I was going to work on my card swap cards, and then I found out that actually, I didn’t have to right stuff needed to make my cards, so no dice there. I instead, decided to make some more card boxes, because I have many cards just hanging around, they need a home. I decided to make a birthday card one, and a box for just regular cards. Here they are:

I really don’t care for the birthday box. I don’t even know what it is, but I hate it. I thought I liked the stamp that I used for the card font, and I think it was going to be different in my head, but when I saw it, I just didn’t like it. And I know what you’re thinking, why didn’t I just start all over again? Because once a craft is finished, it’s finished. I didn’t know how else I would fix it, so I just left it alone. I do like the other box, and that’s good, and that’s the one that I’ll be proud of, of the two of these.

Lehi RoundUp

Today was the Lehi RoundUp. A 10K race in beautiful Lehi, this is my second year doing it. Last year, I really liked the course, it was nice. No hills, that’s always such a bonus when picking a race. This year, they had to change the race route, because it used to go over Trax/Frontrunner tracks, and since that’s up and running this year, they had to divert the route so that none of us would die. I didn’t really care for this new course. It wound through every neighborhood in Lehi, it did a lot of back and forths, and then finally, it ended. It was pretty warm during the race, with this heat wave going on. Luckily, it started at 7:00, so it wasn’t too bad yet, but I definitely felt warmer than usual. And after the race, a few of the Chick Fil A cows were wandering around, and of course I snapped a pic with one.

I chose this cow, because when I was in high school, I got a gift of this same tiny stuffed animal cow. So I felt pretty good about the race, and I was glad that it got over before it got too hot. Stay cool right now, everyone.

Foto Friday

There’s a thing I do with my eyeballs that I’ve never been able to see, because of course when it happens, I can’t really see or anything. But we were waiting for some food to cook, and sending weird pictures back and forth, and I did the face to send, so finally, I’ve been able to see it, and it’s creepy! Now I know why my sister freaks out a little when I do it (which I do to her only to freak her out.)

Very nice, eh? Really, it just looks like I have a eye problem. I’m going to do this more, I’ve decided.

Miscellaneous Monday

I really enjoy my recipe for stuffed peppers (well, technically, it’s Trisha Yearwood’s recipe that I took from a magazine, but let’s not split hairs), and I like to make it, but usually, it just takes a long time, and it makes so much, even in a half recipe that I don’t bother, because there are so many leftovers. I really wanted to eat it this weekend, though, and I came up with an idea. I made the recipe exactly as I usually do, but this time, instead of putting the rice, meat, and tomatoes mixture into the peppers, I chopped up the peppers, mixed them into the mixture, and put it all in a 9x13 glass dish, and baked them like that instead, and it was delicious! A few months ago, I posted a recipe for Stuffed Pepper Casserole, which this is kind of like, but I think it’s more delicious, so I think I’ll just do this instead now, instead of putting together the peppers and baking them. And here’s the finished product:

Yesterday in church, I ran into my brother and his baby. I was giving baby a hug, and my brother told him to give me a kiss on the cheek. He opened his mouth and just put it on my cheek, and blew a little, and it laughed, then all of a sudden he used his new baby teeth to bite my cheek! What a tiny punk! I pulled him away from my face, and told him biting wasn’t cool, and he headbutted me! I know it wasn’t on purpose, he was just squiggling around like babies do, but still, I was like, not cool, baby. Nobody likes to be bitten and then smashed in the face.

Husband’s wallet was recently lost and/or stolen. He doesn’t know which, but he’s leaning towards stolen because it was in his car when he got home from Boston, and he usually just leaves his car unlocked (because we’re in UT, and nothing bad ever happens here, right?) and so since we’ve turned the house upside down trying to find it (literally – I came home from work, and basically he had trashed a few rooms trying to find it) and after having no luck, he realized it was never coming back. So he’s cancelled his cards, and all that, but the problem is his license – it’s a Canadian license. And now, since he has no proof of license, he has to take the US driving test, and get a permit, and then for 3 months he’ll have to drive with an adult in the car, and then he can have a good ol’ fashioned American license. Hopefully now he’ll keep a better watch on his wallet.

Firework Toes

My toenails have been getting pretty long lately, and I never notice until after I have a run, and then my toes hurt, and I realize, I need to get these babies cut. So this weekend, I went and got a pedicure, and I had a sort of weird experience with it. I sat down, and a girl that I had never seen before sat down in front of me, and I handed her my color, and she started to fill my sink. After it was full, and my feet were in there, the lady that I think owns the place said something to my girl, in Vietnamese, and after a few back-and-forths between them, my girl went to the person next to me, and I got a new girl, who introduced herself to me and was really sweet. I don’t know why they made her change, and I don’t know what happened there, but it was weird. She did a good job on my toes, but at one point, she had to get up to ring up the gal she had just finished doing, and she forgot to lotion my other foot, so I only had one foot lotioned, which was ok, but then later, when I was walking around, one of my feet was sort of sliding in my shoe, and the other wasn’t. I went home and just put some lotion on my foot, to even things out. For my design, instead of a flower this time, she did a firework!

I really like it, and it’s a nice holiday change from the flower. Plus now I make little firework noises in my head when I see it.

Fourth of July Tutus

Independence day is coming up, guys. I can’t believe it’s already almost July, but there it is. With this holiday comes one of my favorite races, the Freedom 10K that Provo City puts on. We like to dress up in red, white, and blue every year, and like to make it a little more fun with every race that comes. This year, we wanted to kick it up a notch, and make an awesome tutu. There was of course a pin on Pinterest that let us know how to do it, and after buying the tulle, I sat down to make it.

First, I measured the elastic, and figured out how big I needed that. PJ helped me sew that up, because I can’t sew. Then, I put the elastic on a chair, and started to loop the tulle around the elastic.

After using 60 pieces of foot-long pieces of tulle, the tutu was complete. I tried it on to make sure it worked, and it did!

It did! I am proud of it, and I can’t wait to run the race in it! In case you wanted to see it not on me, I am happy to oblige.

Ta-daaa! Now I wish I had more excuses to wear tutus, because I want to make more! I’ll keep an eye out for any situation in which I can possibly wear one.

Foto Friday

The other day, I was eating some pie (straight out of the tin, because I’m the only one in the house that likes this particular pie) and after I had eaten a few bites, I did some cleaning. Because I was pretty sure I wanted to eat some pie later, I put the fork down on a paper towel, so that I wouldn’t have to dirty another.

So now, this is my new international sign for “I’m going to be eating more pie later.”

Summer Party

Today was my work summer party, and it was chock-a-block full of activities, starting from the AM and going into night. The day kicked off with the Fun Run, a 2 mile race that’s always a good time. I struggled a little with running this day, but I still did ok:

After a few hours of working, Chelle and I headed out at 11ish to get our golf on. After we set up in the cart,

We drove out in the cart, and got to enjoy the view

The course was gorgeous, but it sucked. There were so many hills in the course that it was hard to play on, but we did our best, of course.

We ended up having a lot of fun, though, and that’s really all that matters, not the score (which we didn’t really keep) or how well you did (which really wasn’t all that good, ha! But I forgot to do sunscreen, so by the end of the day, I was burned.

But at least now, it doesn’t hurt all that bad. And after the golf, we had a dinner, and a raffle (which I swear I will never win one of the raffles, it’s gotta be rigged!) and then, the party was over. It’s always a good time, the summer party, and it lets me practice my golf once a year.

Bieber Fever!

Today was my dad’s birthday, and I decorated his office, like I do. After some searching at Zurchers for the right decorations, I finally found the perfect one. I once again had Chelle help me (It’s just easier when you have a friend helping!) and we really did a good job. Here’s the finished project:

Oh yeah, Justin Bieber, baby! Of course, all day I also texted and tweeted and Facebooked Bieber pics all day, to keep the spirit going. Happy birthday, pops!

A Salad in a Jar

For a few weeks now, Chelle has been bringing us in some Mason jar salads, and they have been so good. I feel guilty taking the food and giving nothing in return, so I offered to pay some money, to help buy supplies. She instead offered up that I should make the salads for a week, and I said yes, and immediately regretted it. I don’t know how to do this! I’m not good at things like this! So after stressing about it for like, a week (yes, I did this), I finally bought all the ingredients and got going. I bought a bunch of vegetables…lettuce, corn, green peppers, red peppers, celery, tomatoes, and I boiled some eggs for this. After chopping up all the vegetables

I let them dry/air out for a little while, so that there was no excess moisture in the salad. After a while, I came back, and assembled the salads. I was stressing hard when I put them together, and I don’t think I got the amounts all right, and things were not going well, but finally, I shoved all the ingredients in there, ended up with the lettuce, and snapped a picture.

So, there it is. I brought it to work the next day, and they were pretty good. Not amazing, but maybe if I practice and make more, I’ll get better at it. I just hope I don’t stress so hard the next time. I don’t even know why I’m stressing – it’s not like they’ll be completely inedible and horrible, but still, I’m nervous that I’ll mess it up. I’ll get better!

A Package!

I send my little sister packages all the time. I send some from my own house, but a bunch of them I send straight from Amazon.com. All I have to do is type in her info, and it sends it directly to her, which cuts out the middleman (me) and it is glorious. She and her husband moved to Cali a little more than a year ago, because he’s in the military, and that’s where they’ve been stationed. Finally, yesterday, I got a package in return.

And there it all is. She’s sent some monster cookies, and she decorated the bag with a guy riding a unicorn, many makeup bags, that apparently she must hoard, and a load of free samples that she gets, being part of some club. (She’s told me the name before, but I can’t remember for the life of me) There’s a giant T-shirt that she threw in, that was to pad the cookies so that they wouldn’t get all smashed up in transit. The cookies were really good, I want to get this recipe and make them myself. And how exciting it is to get packages- I just love mail!

Miscellaneous Monday

This past weekend, I went to Boise with Husband. Since its Father’s Day, he wanted to get out of town and avoid it. So, Friday afternoon, I left work a little early, and off we went. We got to Boise at like, 10ish, and had some dinner, and then straight to bed for me, I was so tired. It was like, midnight-thirty at this point, and I rarely go to sleep that late, so I went to bed, but Husband and his friends stayed up to still chat. As I was just putting my head on the pillow, I hear a super loud baby cry – and that’s when I found out that their 2ish year old (sick) baby/child had the room next to ours. Oy vey.

We went river rafting on Saturday, which was a good time, but since I’m deathly scared of the water, it’s really not all that fun. I’ve been once before, when we went to Boise a couple of years ago (And I have scoured the blog here to see what I said about it then, but I can’t find it, so I must not have done so!) and it was much of the same. Luckily, when we go, the guy who guides us down the river, he brings his children, ages 8 and 6, so he keeps things easy and simple, so that they don’t get too scared, and they don’t fall out, and the raft doesn’t tip. So luckily, it’s fun, but with no danger, lest his tiny kids die. So I survived, and thank goodness.

Boise had something I’ve never seen in Utah – grape Redvines. I know what you’re thinking, and I thought the same thing. Redvines are delicious, so why wouldn’t grape redvines or Grapevines as they were called, be delicious as well? And you, like me, are wrong. Grapevines taste awful. They taste like a cold medicine that your mom is making you take to make you feel better but it tastes so bad that it makes you just feel worse. Avoid the Grapevines, should they ever come to Utah. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Vieve’s Video’s

I saw this a few weeks ago on the Ellen Degeneres show, and I laughed for a really long time.

Burn!

This poor girl. She’s giving a tutorial on how to curl your hair, and it just goes so wrong for her.

Kick in the Pants!

Thursday night, when I got home from work, there was a giant pizza box on my doorstep. At first, I was like, did someone order a pizza and just leave it there, but then that made no sense. I parked in the garage like I usually do, and while I walked inside, Husband happened to come home, and picked it up and brought it in. It had my name on it, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was, because any time I get a package, it’s from Amazon, and I know what it is. So I opened it up, and it was a package from Adam’s grandmother – who lives in Florida. It was a game she invented called Kick in the Pants. It’s kind of similar to Sorry!, but don’t mention that to her. Here’s a look at the game:

So this one uses marbles as playing pieces, and you want to get your marbles around the board and back into your ‘home’ space. The dice are used, instead of cards, and only a 1 or a 6 can get you out of your starting place, and only a right number can get you into home. When we went to Florida in March, we went to her house and played it, and it was a lot of fun, so I’m glad and excited that she sent it to me, now I can play whenever I want to!

Foto Friday

I apologize in advance for the language here, but when I saw it, I couldn’t help but laugh really hard.

If Minnie ever did leave Mickey for Goofy, I think that word is totally warranted.

A Birthday Gift

Today was my nephew’s birthday party. It’s not his birthday, that isn’t until Saturday, but his party was tonight, and of course, I went. I realized after I got to work that I hadn’t stopped to get him his gift certificate, mostly because I couldn’t decide where to get him one. Should I get him clothes, a movie, a game, a book? So I finally decided on good ol’ cold hard cash. I wanted a cute way of presenting it to him, so Chelle and I put our heads together, and finally came up with this:

Now, for some explanation. I decided that with the cash, it would be funny to roll them up. Chelle had some ribbon at the office, so I tied them into tiny rolls, and then tied them with the ribbon. I did 20 ones, and 2 fives, to keep it fun. As I was working on that, Chelle was helping me by making the box, which she mad out of paper at her desk. It was awesome! And the best news of all, I think my nephew really enjoyed it, which is what it’s all about anyway.

Stamp & Chat Time

Last night was Stamp & Chat, being the second Tuesday of the month and all. It was filled with laughter and good times, naturally. The cards this time weren’t really really hard, which really makes things easier for me. I’m not saying I can’t make the cards, and I’m always helped along when I can’t seem to make things work, but my ego definitely feels better when I get what’s going on. Anyway, here are the cards:

Aren’t they just so cute? Stamp & Chat is good for me, because it introduces me to color combinations I probably wouldn’t have thought of before, plus it helps me to think of card ideas for when I have to make my own – I’ll just follow this same format. Afterwards, we had a delicious treat of fruit with a fruit dip, and it was healthy! With how many treats I eat all the time, I really could use more fruit in my life

A Grilled Cheese Sandwich…Differently Done

These past few weeks, I’ve been enjoying some salads with Chelle at work. Here’s a link to her stuff, so you can see what kind of stuff she’s doing, and the deliciousness factor. I’ve been contributing by bringing grilled cheese sandwiches to accompany our salads. Now, I know what you’re thinking. If you make a grilled cheese sandwich in the morning, it’s not good by the afternoon, right? It’s all soggy, or just cold, and really, you can’t heat up a grilled cheese sandwich in the microwave either, so this is what we do: We have a toaster oven at work. We all pitched in a few months (maybe even a year now, wow) and we all use it all the time, its genius. So to make the grilled cheese sandwich, here’s what you do:
Step one: Toast the bread on one side in the toaster
Step two: After it’s been toasted to your personal preference, flip the toast over, and let it toast the other side.
Step three: After both sides are toasted appropriately, put two slices of cheese on your bread, one on each slice, and place back in oven.
Step four: Watch the cheese carefully! When it gets melted, quickly remove the slices of bread, and put them together, making your sandwich.
Step five: Put the sandwich back in the oven, just for a few seconds, to make sure they all melt together.
Ta-daaaa! That’s it, that’s all you need to do to make your sandwich. Here’s a pic of one of ours:

Doesn’t that look awesome? And it is, it’s so good and delicious, and now, you know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich if you don’t happen to have a stovetop!

Miscellaneous Monday

Today, I went shopping with my youngest sister-in-law, Bonanza. She has recently joined the cross country team, and she needed some compression shorts. We went to Sports Authority, and she tried on a few shorts. As she’s trying them on, she’s trying on the smalls or extra smalls, and she’s like, shoot, is there anything smaller than this? I’m thinking ‘anything smaller than an extra small? No, that’s as small as you can get.” We finally did find her a couple of pairs of shorts, and off we went. Her goal is to run 1-2 miles by the middle of the summer, and I wish her luck with it. I’ve told her that once she can run three, we’ll do a race together.

This past Saturday, I accidentally ran for 7 miles, and walked for 3, finishing with a grand total of 10. Let me explain. That morning, I did not feel very well, but I went anyway. When we got to our place of running, we started walking, just because that’s a good way for me to get motivated usually. After we’d walked a mile, we realized we should probably get going. We ran three miles up the trail, and when we got up there, we were like, oh I totally bet we could keep going. So, we ran another mile, for a grand total of 4 up there. As soon as we turned around, my body was like, oh I’m done. My legs were tired, my stomach wasn’t doing well, and my brain had decided to give up as well. So I struggled through running another 3 miles, making it to 7, before I just had to stop. So we ended up walking the last 2 miles. At least I ran most of it!

I was rehired into the world of visiting teaching lately. My RS pres caught me one day in church, right before it started, and asked if I wanted to start up again. I said, sure, whatever, and she partnered me up with a new friend I’ve met in the ward. Now she sets up the meetings, and I just show up and smile and thrown in my two cents once in a while, and things are all well and good. I’ve gone teaching twice now! I’m proud of my “growth” and maybe I can get better at it. Maybe one day I can even plan the lesson! Don’t hold your breath though.

Sacrament Friends

Today, during sacrament meeting, I was sitting there, listening to the boys that were speaking. The YM had recently gone on a trip to Lake Powell, so they were all talking, recapping, etc. All of a sudden, I feel a small tap on my leg, and there’s a small girl there – the daughter of a new friend I’ve made, and my new visiting teacher partner. She handed me this:

and said she’d colored it for me. Then she turned and walked away after I said thank you. A second later, she returned to tell me, that she wrote my name up at the top, and her name is on the other side, and she wrote her mom’s name (mama) in the middle. I couldn’t believe how cute she was! And in case you wondered, the little sixes and stuff at the bottom is aliens. She had a hard time drawing the sixes, so turned some of them into aliens. I’m going to keep this page forever, or until I accidentally lose it, whichever comes first.

Springville Art City Days 2013

This year, the Art City 5k happened to be on the same day as the funeral. So, because the race was so early, I did the race really quickly, then came home, didn’t stay for the awards or the drawing or anything. Later, I was told that I did actually win something, which I really didn’t expect, because there were a billion people in front of me when I finished. So this is the medal, for being third in my age group, I got it today, just a week later. I think I finished in 25:50something, I can’t remember exactly.

Apparently, the first place one was gold, the second silver, and this bronze for third. I was really happy to get this, especially when I really didn’t think I would get anything at all. But now, I’ll be in the next age group up next race, and I can’t tell if that’ll be a good thing or a bad thing. I’ll wait and see!

Foto Friday

Today is National Donut Day! I learned this at the gym – the news covered it. Way to go, news, way to cover the important breaking news. So of course, I had to get us some donuts to eat for breakfast. Dunford Donuts – the best kind of donut there is.

Delicious! Enjoy the holiday!

Nails are the Worst

Today, at work, Chelle and I were walking down to the break room for a small break and some refreshment. As we were chatting and walking through a door, some random thing on the door happened to catch my nail and it ripped it.Also as soon as it happened, a little pool of blood started to collect under the nail too.

You can’t really see it that well, but there’s a rip in the nail right above the pink part of the nail. Also, don’t make fun of my nails, when I had fake nails a hundred years ago, it ruined the crap out of my nails.

So now I’m just waiting for the nail to be ripped off, the crack will lead to a rip and I am almost crying in anticipation. As soon as I can man up, I think I’ll get some clippers and try to cut it off myself. Wish me luck, friends. Maybe I’ll post a pic on here when it happens.

Family Shindig

I had said in my post yesterday that we had a family memorial type thing after the funeral, but I had neglected to post any pics of it. I realize that I could just go back and add the pics later, but then I thought, I may as well add a bunch of pics and make it it’s own post. If you don’t want to read it, don’t, no one is forcing you.

Husband and I at the beginning of the night:

That hat that I’m wearing is an Indiana Jones hat, and since I’ve worn it like, twice in my whole life, it’s still really stiff from not being used.

This is Adam (and my, I guess? I guess I’m not sure how in-law business works)’s cousin, Devon. She’s so small, I’m actually bending down a bit to to be her same size. She was a lot of fun, and it’s such a shame that we had to meet at a sad event.

This is Uncle Dennis with his kids, Devon and Dalton (and their spouses). If there’s anything I’ve learned about the Clark clan, its that the families find a letter, and stick with it for every kid.

And finally, ending with some girl cousins whose names I don’t remember, but they all start with C’s. That’s how I differentiated between the families. Ha. This was a fun night, peppered with all the memories of Steve and Sue, and I’m glad we went. Originally, we thought about skipping it, since we were already so tired, but I’m glad we went. It was nice to meet all the family.

Laid to Rest

Today, we laid to rest my sweet in-laws, Steve and Sue. After a hard week of a lot of memories, and trying to figure out everything, today was the funeral. We had a viewing last night, and another small one this morning before the funeral, and then we had the funeral. I thought the funeral was good, it had the perfect amount of humor and sadness, and humor is sometimes needed in times like these. As we arrived at the cemetery, and the caskets were put into the spots, that’s mostly when it all hit me, that this was it. This was the final time we’d be with them, this was the last time the kids would be with their parents’ physical bodies. It kind of hit us all hard right then, that this was it. I’m grateful for the example these 2 have taught us, and I’m grateful that they’ve raised such wonderful children. I know the family will have to step in and step up to be parental-figures to my younger sisters in law, and I hope we can help out, and hopefully be as good as teachers as Steve and Sue would have us be. I know we can never replace them, nor would we want to, but I hope we can still be a good example, and help everyone from here on out.

After the funeral. the Clark side of the family got together and had a memorial-type thing. We all wore our family reunion shirts from a few years ago, and wore any hats we could, it was a crazy hat party, which is apparently something the Clark’s have done for years. It was nice, amidst all the sadness, to hear such fond memories of my in-laws, and to feel the love every one has for each other. Having grown up in Utah, in the Mormon culture, I think I’ve taken it for granted that everyone feels and believes the same, for the most part. So while we all have the knowledge that these deaths aren’t the end, only a see you later, the rest of the family, on both sides, don’t believe the same. So even though we have sadness over the deaths, we’re comforted with the knowledge that we’ll see each other again, in just a little while. It was just sad to see all of the relatives who think that this is it, they’ll never get to see their relative again. I’m grateful for the gospel – and grateful that we’ll all be able to reunite again, when it’s time for me to go.