Lately I've been....

Trying to figure out how to fix this:

 















Making something wonderful out of these:

Growing these:

Stitching this:

Knitting these:

Turning this into something amazing:

Loving on this:

And sometimes this:

And enjoying this:

InstaOregon

I downloaded the Instagram iPhone app quite a while ago, but never really played with it. After James and I's roadtrip to Oregon last week, I discovered it came in handy quite a bit.  Is it bad for a self-proclaimed photographer to be in love with such a silly app? Probably.
It was just so much easier to capture random things, since I've ALWAYS got my phone on me.
Here is our journey to the land of hippies and no sales tax, via Instagram:

Gas station Alpaca

.....because it wasn't apparent....

Sunset & Bug Spatter

This was outside an antique mall in Boise, ID.  It is particularly hilarious if you read The Bloggess .

Hood River, OR

Big Beer, Little Beer

These road reflectors were fascinating in the streetlight.  Maybe it was 7 hours of driving? Maybe it's because we don't have them in Utah?

So many band posters...

...and the staples they leave behind

FAUX HAWK!!!!!!

I've thought a lot over the years about cutting my hair off.
I see women with short spunky irreverent haircuts and I fall in love.
But totally not in a gay way.

To convey just HOW LONG I've been thinking about this, lets go back to 2007.

I had Malinda cut me some baby spikes. I felt like it was the best of both worlds.  I could still have my long hair, and do it "normal" if I felt, but I could also be weird.  Going short was just too scary.  I've never had short hair, the idea was far too foreign.

I kept the spikes, or some version of the spikes until January of this year when I decided bangs were a good idea.  I LOVE Zooey Deschanel's look and thought I could pull it off.  This was a little scary. I hadn't had bangs since childhood, and those were the "curl half up, half down" kind.

 

I really liked the bangs, but became frustrated with them if the wind was blowing, it was snowing, raining or it was hot.  I loved my bangs in perfect situations only. Which was a pain in the ass.

Last week, out of nowhere, I started asking a friend with short hair questions about it. I wanted to know if people that had cut their hair short regretted it or loved it.  I started polling people I knew that had short hair.  The verdict was always the same:  They love it.

After a couple days of thinking REALLY hard about it, I made an appointment with Malinda (who also has short hair and assured me that it'd be great).

Seriously thinking about cutting all my long hair off made me ill.  I had butterflies.  Not the "I'm in love" kind, but the "I'mma puke" kind.  I thought a lot about all the instances where I liked having long hair, and what might be great about short hair.  The fear of the unknown was kinda crazy.

There. It was done.  30 seconds and it was over. I didn't barf.
I was, however, still terrified.
After Malinda did her magic and showed me how to style it, I felt a LOT better.  Getting positive reinforcement from a few people helped also. It's funny how pretty much everyone will tell you how great it looks so you don't really know who is full of shit.  It's such a drastic change that if people DON'T comment on it, you know they hate it :)

After five days, I'm definitely not used to it, but I'm enjoying it a lot more.  It's easy to do, washing it is so much faster, AND I drove home from Logan yesterday with the windows down and didn't worry about not having a hair tie.  I also don't have to worry about finding my hair ties in the cat bowl since it's Harley's favorite thing to steal them and put them there.  YAY for not smelling like cat food!

So here it is :)  The new me.
I'm so glad I finally found the balls to do this.  I think it fits me :)

 

And yes, I'm going do donate it :)

Highlight Reel

Shit.  It's been kindof forever since I updated this turd.
I think I'll browse my iCal and see if I can remember what's happened in the last few months. Maybe I should just figure out how to PDF it and use that as a blog post? That'd be the most accurate account of my life, really.
Heregoes.

April
I lost like 15 pounds since January. And then, nothing happened. I tried and tried my hardest and nothing else happened.  So, here I am, back to nachos and sitting on my ass. It's a vicious cycle.

We went to Wendover for the guys' golf tournament, in which they all did extremely well. They "win money" which translates to clubhouse play money. Apparently you can't actually get paid since getting paid makes you a professional, and lets be honest, they sure as shit aren't professionals.....So they get pretend money credit to buy crap they don't need in the pro shop. Manuel ended up getting a new bag, which was pretty funny to watch him lust after because I get that same look in my eyes when looking at new bags....

Late night Wendover sword fight

Manuel and I celebrated our 3-year anniversary.
* Can I get a collective "awwwwww!"? *
We adopted a Japanese baby earlier in the year and decided it was our valentines/anniversary gift to each other. He's a lovely 40-something inch, HD, LCD 8-bazillion megapixel, 5,000,000,000,000 refresh rate, 569-ram, par-9 Vizio.  Yeah, that sounds about right.


May
I went to Bear Lake with Laura and spent some quality girl time.  It was a much needed getaway. I read and knitted.  I also wogged and did some yoga on the beach. Overall a very amazing time.


I went to the dentist AND eyedoctor.... What my eyes lack, apparently my teeth make up for.  I've only had 4 cavities EVER, but I'm going blind. I tentatively asked how strong they made contacts before they just had to put you down because you were blind.  He assured me that I still have a ways to go. I kindof don't believe him. I ordered two jackass pairs of glasses off Zennioptical.com which is a pretty rad place to buy glasses if your eyes insist on sucking harder year after year. They're super cheap.  Look a lot like coke bottle bottoms, but super cheap. Even with the "extra strength" fee.  Yeah. That's a thing.

I had a birthday. I've decided that 29 is harder than 30.  This is purely speculation since I've not actually reached 30 yet, but that's sortof the point.  29 is an entire year of anticipating turning 30.  Uncool, friends. Uncool.
Remember when 30 sounded... like.... really fucking old?  Yeah.
I got spoiled, ate a lot and spent time with the bests.

The personalization on my calendar from my dad. It's pretty accurate to real life.

Erica, Manzilla, Me

Me, Bdawg & Mat

Balms & I

We went camping for Memorial Day up above Bear Lake. It was a supercold bitch and even snowed on us. The boys went riding and got just a little bit muddy. We ended up leaving early because everyone was tired of being cold and wet. The time we did spend up there though was pretty rad.

Great minds pack the same beer. Oh, and Lips the photobomber.

I honestly do not know what's happening here.

Manny and the Glovers. Like I said, just kindof dirty....

June
June was pretty uneventful. Manny and Erica were cram-traning for the Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay. They both survived, which was a good. Manny ended up running farther than anticipated but did really well.  They were proud of themselves, even if everyone else thinks they're batshit bonkers.


I hosted a BeadforLife party at my house, selling paper jewelry made by Women in Uganda. So far I think I've raised about $800. Go check out their website, it's really neat.  I'm glad to be able to help these women empower themselves through work. Everything is fairtrade, meaning that most of the money goes back to them. They're paid decent wages. 
Super cheesy, but everytime I look at the jewelry I've bought, I feel connected in a weird way. I feel something for these women that made these gorgeous things. Just to think about where they've come from and why makes you stop and think about life a little.

Which now brings us to July, and the raddest vacation ever. Which hopefully will end up being its own blog post sometime before November.

Bunny Nuggets & Chubby Chirps

Continuing in what may be a very long love affair with Rebecca Danger,
I constructed two of her "Bunny Nuggets" and a "Chubby Chirp" for my Mam for Easter. 
No bunnies were harmed in the making of the monster.....even though I did have some pretty humorous daydreams of the monster coming to life and me coming home to a bunny massacre.   It only makes sense that monsters would eat bunnies.

I'm having so much fun with her crazy ideas that I downloaded the pattern to THESE GUYS thinking they'd be a pretty great baby shower present.



Also knitted lately:  A sweater for my darling niece Hadlee.  She's pretty much the cutest thing there ever was.  Even more so in her birthday sweater :)

MONSTERS!

I was mindlessly perusing etsy.com the other day, and came across the genius that is Rebecca Danger.  Seriously, this girl is like a knitting rock star.  I heart her.
I found myself laughing at all her little "monster" knitting patterns. I had to make one.  This one was my favorite, so I started there :)

 I think she's adorable, and she makes me smile. Yes, I made her for me. Maybe one day I'll make them for other people and share the monster love :)


Check out the rest of Rebecca's amazing patterns here

Simple pleasures

Does anyone else effing LOVE mac & cheese with hotdogs?!

OM NOM.

After a post about some really marvelous food, I leave you with this:

PURE. GENIUS.

That is all.

Wasatch Brewery + MacCools = LOVE

For Valentine's Day, Me & Manny, Erica & Brad and Matt & Breanne went to MacCool's Wasatch Brewery dinner. It was five courses of deliciousness, something I hope we'll do again someday.
Not only was everything good, but what made it cool was having the chef and Wasatch Brewery's Brew Master there to talk about everything on the menu. Getting to ask them specific questions was really neat.

I apologize for the crappy photos, they don't at all do the food justice :/


Soup Course: Acorn Squash Soup

Oven roasted acorn squash soup; highlighted with hints of fresh Jalapeno and sweet potato flavors. Paired with a Brew Master Matt Beamer's Wasatch Jalapeno Ale.
Review: I could eat this soup everyday, and I'm not a soup person. It had the perfect amount of heat and flavor and was delightful mixed with the cilantro whipped cream. The beer, amazing. If you've never had a spicy beer, I highly recommend trying one.



Intermezzo One: Pretzel Fingers

A baked Bavarian style soft pretzel with Utah's own Bee Hive Cheese Co. apple smoked cheddar created into a dip. Paired with MacCool's Black & Tan.
Review: EFFING AMAZING.  Pretzelmaker can suck it. I don't know if I can ever eat a normal pretzel again. This dinner is ruining me.



Entree Course:Kurobata Pork

Snake River Farms roasted pork with an apricot sauce drizzled with pomegranate reduction; herbed red mashers and tri-colored carrots. Paired with a Hop Bandit Cask Ale.
Review:  Everything was incredible. I'm not typically a pork fan, but this was really great. The biggest surprise was the beer.  Oh muh lord.  I can't even describe how good it was. The biggest let-down was also the beer. They hiked around park city picking fresh hops to use. Usually hops are dried and used in beer.  The fresh hops and the wood cask method used made this beer incredible. Using only fresh hops means that this beer is only made once a year :/



Intermezzo Two: Bananas Foster

A baked goat cheese mousse with citrus flavors and a banana essence. Paired with Wasatch Hefeweizen.
Review: Everyone knows how I feel about goat cheese. I could marry it.  I was pretty excited to try this, but the sweetness of the bananas was overwhelming. I only ate half... but if no one had been watching, I totally would have dissected it and licked all the goat cheese off the rest of the bananas.


Dessert Course: The Devastator Cake

A moist, rich double bock cake topped with vanilla toffee ice cream and a Devastator malt caramel sauce. Paired with Wasatch Devastator Double Bock.
Review: The cake was good, the ice cream was awesome (also made locally, apparently by a woman that uses the PTO on a John Deere tractor to churn it) 
We got to talk to the chef, which was very interesting to pick his brain and listen to how he came up with the recipes for the pairings, and exactly how much beer (4 per 9x13 pan!) he used in the cake.

Las Vegas :)

This year for Christmas, James & I bought our boyfriends each a plane ticket to Las Vegas.  It was horrid keeping it a secret for so long because it was so exciting! Guy had never been, so it was fun showing him all the craziness that is Vegas.



After we landed and got checked in to our room, we headed down to Freemont Street. I hadn't been there in like 10 years, so it was something I wanted on the list of must-dos.
Freemont St. is the "original" Vegas. There's still a bunch of old casinos and they've blocked the street off so you can just wander along checking out the pretty lights. And the hobos.

 Hello, 99¢ Margaritas :)

 There's a canopy the length of five football fields 

that has a light show every hour at night. Pretty neat.

 Manny's friend Ryan that lives in Vegas drug us to this creepy dark hole-in-the-wall bar called The Griffin. I fully expected to be bitten by a vampire or sacrificed, but we made it out alive.   Juuuust kidding mom... I felt totally safe..... 

Note to self: No more visiting Freemont St. at 2am.

We happened to be there for Chinese New Year, so all the casinos were decorated accordingly. These were taken in the atrium at the Bellagio.

 It's the Year of the Rabbit, Manny's year!

We had to make sure we saw the fountains at the Bellagio. We usually don't do such touristy things, but Guy needed to be educated on the Vegas basics.

 

We took the boys to VooDoo on top of the Rio. It has a pretty spectacular view of the strip and the entire valley. Of course, the mandatory Witch Doctor made an appearance :)

Of course, there had to be an obligatory Youngs-posing-as-something-else photo. This is the Jelly Belly statue of liberty at the MGM Grand. And her imposters, of course.

After a couple days of crazy busyness, we chilled for a mellow night eating all-you-can-eat sushi and watching the 80's rock cover band "Yellow Brick Road". We also found $7  24oz. Bud Lights. Which is why we were drinking them. Everything else was like, a billion dollars. A BILLION.

Me and Manny spent the last day wandering around the outlet mall. Ok, I was shopping, Manny was mostly people watching. We were both worn out.
There WAS a pretty cool little Chinese New Year parade happening throughout the mall though.