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.