Things I love today...

Here and gone...

The Minnesotan fam came this weekend for a whirlwind trip! They got here on Friday at about noon, and were gone in the blink of an eye...

Brian showed them the recital hall, and they were really impressed. Danny even played "He is Risen" on the organ. Brian made it a duet, and I was once again shown up by a 7 year old. (I have always sworn that there would be NO DUETS for me and Brian. No way, no how.)



The boys played video games, per the usual. We ate, we watched movies, we played card games, we laughed, we ate, and we slept a few hours too.


Danny even brought some crafts! When he got up this morning, it was the first thing he did. I'll be honest. That's a boy after my own heart...


Two of these things are not like the others! Two are still in pajamas with bed-head. The rest have showered and gotten ready for the day... :)



Hope they had a good time. We sure did!

Behold, the floor!

I never, I repeat never, thought I would be excited to see a patch of brown marbly carpeting!

Junk room...FINALLY organized!

Monday update

I hate to think that you're stopping here to see what's going on with us...and you're leaving empty handed (headed?!). So here are a few of the things we've been up to:

• Taking lots of pictures. Of food. But not of each other. Weird. Put that on my to-do list. Take more pictures of us. (now THERE's a first!)
  
• Working. That's right. I got a job at an office about 2 miles from our house. And I couldn't be happier. P.s. No day-after-Thanksgiving mayhem required. YESSSS!
• Sorting, sifting, and tossing old stuff. It's extremely liberating. We're throwing things away we always thought we neeeeeded (whiny voice) and it feels awesome. And also makes room for NEW stuff!
• Loving Fall. The weather (with the exception of today) has been cool, windy, and the leaves are turning the most GORGEOUS of colors. One tree in our neighborhood, in particular, is putting on a phenomenal show. I think I shall bake it some pumpkin bread as a gesture of thanks.
• Doing grown-up things like getting new checking accounts (income, remember?). Our debit cards have wheat on them. They let us pick the design from a small assortment. Seemed the most like stereotypical Kansas. Ask us. We'll show them to you. And you'll be envious. I'm sure of it.
  
• Loving the idea of 11 wonderful days with family and old friends. We booked our Christmas tickets to UT. Wahoo!
• Allowing the budget to take a quick breather. The ol' boy's been workin' overtime lately. We even went out to dinner to celebrate my new job without asking permission. It was great!
• Appreciating my mom's sweet drawing skills. I found this the other day. She painted it...and it's ME! Right down to the green polka dot hoodie, the brown and white purse, the billowing locks of perfect thick hair (maybe she exaggerated a bit), and the longest fingers in the West (manicured, even!). Love her.
  
• Just livin' the dream... One fabulous day at a time. My mom once said to me "You're lookin' good times right in the face". And, man, was she right...

As Neil (my brother) would say... that will be all. :)

Out with the old...

Two GIGANTOR boxes of clothes.
Three too-heavy-to-carry trash cans full of magazines.
Old purses. Old bags. Old wallets. Old shoes. Old boots.
White trash bags full of old papers, trinket-trash, and just junk.
And one mystery assortment of miscellaneous STUFF in an overfilled black trash bag, that someone is sure to love for the right price.

Some to Goodwill. The rest to the trash.

And it feels so good.

He's my favorite...

My husband LOVES to learn.
He loves learning a new skill and then perfecting it.
He's not afraid to dabble in something that's completely unknown.
It's one of the things I love most about him.

And this time, he learned and made something for me.


A homemade lightbox! And check out her maiden voyage...


True. Love.

For the guy? Already had it.

For his dedication to learning, doing, and perfecting? Renewed.

Sah-weet pictures coming to a food blog near you...

Did someone say income?

Gainful employment, it's nice to see you again. It's been a long time.

Days of freedom left - 1.5

And the budget couldn't be happier.

Blog blackout

Once upon a time, Brian and I went on vacation to FL. When we got back, my parents had moved to town. Talk about a great surprise!

At the same time, we were gearing up to move away to KS (boo for the timing of it all!). In that craziness, blogging was neglected. So, here are some of the shots from that time.


From left to right, top to bottom...
1. The new house. Almost as nice as our place here in KS. :)
2. Celebrating Racher's b-day at Brick Oven. Mmmmm.
3. Me claiming the huge rock in front of the new house. Yes, actually, I am the Queen of the Rock.
4. Fireworks on the 4th of July.
5. Sugar cookies that will change your life shared on the 4th.
6. Brian sharing his BBQ goodness.
7. Being with my mom and sisters. Wonderful.
8. Teaching the fam to play bocce.
9. More cool fireworks.
10. Living at their house (thanks for the bed, Stace) before we left.
11. Eating their REALLY GOOD food before we left.
12. Enjoying good times with them before we left.

Best part is? Except for a few things, most all of it will be there when we go back for Christmas.

Life is good.

Like mother, like daughter...

Option 1 (most people): Find a store-bought wreath. Hang it on front door. The end.

Option 2 (like she taught me): Search for store-bought wreath. Decide that everything out there is just...ehhh. Decide that even the store-bought components just aren't that great. Come up with another idea. Gather grapevine wreath and black spray paint. Paint wreath. Try not to inhale. Dry. Hunt for cute lights. Hunt for other little trinket-trash things to put on wreath. Agonize about how a person would attach trinket-trash to wreath. Agonize about how to get power to front door, as battery-operated lights are not available in purple. Let black wreath, lights, and trinket-trash rest for a few days because the mental stewing is not yet finished. Buy an extension cord. Let it sit a few days. Assemble wreath, complete with purple lights and cute Halloween sign. Forego trinket-trash. It just looks...trashy. Hang on front door. Jimmy-rig extension cords to get power to front door. Take cute pictures for blog. The end.

See, now that wasn't that hard...

And, by the way, Mom...I still like your way better.

Please pass the panic.

Have you ever had a moment of absolute panic? I have. It was today.

It started out innocently enough. I was erasing junk from my mp3 player. I was just clearing some of the unimportant stuff off, especially the duplicated songs and pictures.

I've always been so afraid to lose my pictures, in particular, that I often put them in folders more than once.

So, when I was using the sync software this morning, and thought I saw a duplicated folder...

...I erased it.

I thought I was allowing the software to also delete my pictures from the library (for the mp3 player). Turns out...it was the picture library. ON THE HARD DRIVE.

I checked the July 2008 folder.

EMPTY.

And then, the panic hit.

What were the pictures you ask? And how could they be that big of a deal?

Well, you might remember a little trip Brian and I took.

TO SAN DIEGO.

Yes sir. Those were the ones. Gone. Every single one of them. And the pictures of a tradeshow, bocce championship, and everything else from July 2008 went with them.

Brian was at a cub scout meeting. He was supposed to be finished. I called him. He didn't answer. I freaked out some more. I almost cried. But I couldn't. I was too busy freaking out.

I checked the picture folders on our external hard drive. Nope. Not there.

Someone, please grab me a brown paper bag. I might die.

I opened my Picasa account. Yay! They're still there. And then...

...they were gone in an instant. The nice thing (!?) about Picasa is that it syncs with your hard drive every time you start it. Oh, wonderful, right? WRONG.

And then, a miracle happened. I was hurriedly scanning through old folders on Picasa.

And there they were. In a SEPARATE folder. Entitled "The Diego".

Insert inner glee for actually saving things 2 and 3 times, even if it takes up extra space...

Did a hard drive search. And the San Diego pictures were saved! At least I had those, I thought.

But as I looked further... Not only were they saved, but they were hiding in a crevice of the external hard drive in a folder called "Backup of Pictures, Aug 2009".

I nearly fell out of my chair. All of our July 2008 pictures were back.

So, a bit of friendly advice. Do yourself a favor today (don't wait until tomorrow)...and crank up the ol' external hard drive. Schedule a backup of your pictures. Or even burn some backup CDs/DVDs the old school way.


I promise. You'll thank me.

Thursday and listy

• It was raining really hard this morning. And I loved it.
• I've had a couple of job interviews recently. When I put on my grown-up shoes, they gave me blisters. I think I've been out of a job for too long.
• I'm starting to realize that pumpkin is at the heart of most of my favorite desserts. I bought a can of it the other day, and cannot for the life of me decide what to use it for.
  
• Favorites include: my mom's pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins (Carrie!), pumpkin roll (my all time favorite, but too flashy for a weekday), or pumpkin pie bars. YUM.
• I have been following her intermittently for a while, but now I'm hooked. NieNie was on Oprah yesterday, and she was incredible.
  
• I'm turning into my mother, and I'm SO pleased about it. I wanted a Halloween wreath for my front door. Couldn't find anything I liked. Not even remotely. So I'm making one. Grapevine wreath, black spray paint, purple Halloween light strand, Halloween sign and other goodies gathered. Now to assemble it! We don't need no stinkin' store-bought wreath... "I could make that!"
  
• I'm learning my way around this Kansas place. I intentionally take random streets to find out how everything is connected. Helps that the place isn't that big too...
• I've never seen any of the High School Musical movies. I'm afraid I'll be in love with them. There. I said it.
• I went through a bunch of old burned CDs the other day. Talk about a stroll down memory lane! Treasures included: a driving-home-from-BYU mix I put together at the beginning of summer 2003, about 4 copies of "my favorite Josh Groban songs" CD, and the mix that Brian and I listened to in the car when we were dating. Ripped them all and tossed the CDs. Freedom.
• Another job interview tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed. This girl needs work!
  
• I make the blog headers at the top from my favorite pictures. But I put a new one up, and I'm bored with it in about a week. Ugh.
• As a matter of fact, time to go make a new one!

May your Thursday be rainy and include baked pumpkin goodness. :)

Just kidding

I didn't mean to sound like a crazy person in my last post. Particularly about my budget. If you want it, it's all yours. :) It's just a little intense and catered to my mind (whoa, yikes). I typed up some of the "directions" on the cover page today, so those should help unlock some of the mysteries...

Email me at byu(underscore)alicia(at)hotmail(dot)com if you're interested.

(disclaimer: By sending you my budget, I am, in no way, responsible for your financial future...unless it helps you. Then you can make t-shirts with my face on them. That should suffice.)

If you're a lurker and you still want it, use this as a chance to introduce yourself!

Love,
The budgetmeister

Progress

Spent a most enjoyable weekend watching General Conference. Love the opportunity to listen, to learn, and to start fresh and be better. I come away with that feeling every six months. It's fantastic.

Another mini update with pictures...

Made these today. Can't give you the recipe though. It's a seeeecret. Or, better yet, it belongs to the Lion House. And I don't want to go to jail for publishing it. It's all over the web... so find it yourself. :)


Took grocery budgeting to the next level. This, my friends, is not normal. Don't ask. You won't like how meticulous it is. My brain, however, THRIVES on this stuff... (And, if you're still mad about me not publicly distributing my full budget? Keep fuming. I am thinking of shopping around for a "real" program. Too much to keep track of these days. There MUST be free or affordable software out there that can do exactly what I need and not be so intense to explain...)


Captured me some morning light. LOVE living above ground. Have I mentioned that enough lately?


Made HUMONGOUS progress in the junk room. Yes, there's carpeting in that room. Hard to believe, I know. First time I've seen it since we moved in, as a matter of fact. Still much to do in there. (P.s. You can judge me ALL YOU WANT for having so much stuff. It's part of my life. I like having it. I like using it. And I'm meticulously arranging it. That's the hold-up. It DOES matter to me which drawer has brads and eyelets, which drawer holds adhesive, which drawer houses the acrylic paints, and which one holds the foam brushes. Thanks for asking.)


After a huge attack on the mess, we only have about 4 or 5 boxes left still packed in the entire place (not including my scrapbook paper boxes, shown above). As of tomorrow, we will have been here 2 months. Not bad, I'd say!

Stay tuned for more updates...

Stuff we've been up to...

I haven't had much to blog about lately, it seems. I'm looking for a job (still), and the days are not very exciting, honestly. But, who ever said a blog needs to be about excitement and geese all the time?!

Here are some of the things we've been up to:

Cleaning out the 2nd bedroom. The Minnesotan Mathiases are coming later this month, so it's time to start hacking away at the "junk room"! It still looks TERRIBLE. But most of the boxes are gone now, so the sorting begins. Did I mention that one of the guys that helped us move in said (upon seeing all of the boxes labeled CRAFTS), "Startin' to see why you need a second bedroom!"? I almost punched him out right then. But he might've been right. Just a little.


Hanging out with the "Sisters". I was called to be a ward missionary, and I love it! These are two of the reasons why it's so great. They're tall, they're hilarious, and they love the Gospel. I just adore them.


Spending a mint on scout apparel. Brian was called to be a Cub Scout leader, and it turns out that the garb is pretty spendy. The American Flag was free, thankfully. (That would seem wrong, I think.) Brian's dad has always been extremely involved in scouting, and seeing Brian in this shirt leads me to think that this might be part of his wardrobe for the rest of time. :)


Other activities have included but are not limited to: Killing Bunnies with some new Kansas friends (don't worry, L&G...you have NOT been replaced! sound effects are lacking in our games...), cooking up a storm, getting ready for General Conference this weekend, and spending lots of time with my two best friends.

And even better? The weather is chilly, the leaves are changing, and I'm wearing a hoodie.

Life is good.