61 to go

I am so ready for Christmas. I am ready for Sirius Holiday Music. I am ready for Paul McCartney and the Wings. I am ready for shopping and giving and eating cookies and wrapping gifts and opening gifts and all that wonderful, lovely, once a year jazz. There is just something fantastic about Christmas.

I got my Christmas piano music. I got silver bells!!! Silver Bells is possibly one of the greatest Christmas songs ever written. Why? I have no idea. I love to sing Silver Bells during the year. Dad and I always sing it on road trips. I distinctly remember driving through Nevada on our way to Vegas and singing Silver Bells. And that was in July. So basically we are strange. And I got Rudolph the red nose reindeer, which is immensely cool because I know it in French! I love Christmas. I love French. It doesn't get much better than that.

Sucsessful Celebration

Well, Its world pasta day and I celebrated like nobody's business. I LOVE pasta. With cheese. With sauce. With butter. Oh my. So today, we reheated pasta. We ate pasta. We love it. BUT THEN, we realize it is world pasta day. We love our pasta even more. We eat more. We are happy, happy, happy. Then, to top it all of, Mother brought each of us a cake pop! It was the grandest celebration.

Pasta related story: Once upon a time we were driving through Salt Lake city and decided to go to Olive Garden. This is a big stretch for my father, because he despises Italian food. I was sick. But being sick does not stop me from eating mass amounts of breadsticks and ravioli (the most sublime pasta.) So I ate mass amounts and life continued. But then we got to the car. I suddenly felt really bad. And right there in Olive Garden parking lot in Salt Lake City, I threw up. Yes, Pasta, breadsticks and all. I puked everywhere. It was not pretty for ANYONE there. Moral of the story? I still love pasta.

Sincerely,
And I knew you really wanted to hear that.

Lucky you!

I know you've been wondering..."What is the week 6 design?". You're in for a treat!


Simple. Cute. Blue. I love all those things. Its not really keeping with the vintage theme of my other pages, but I decided I had to use it because I love the pattern. It reminds me of a Vera Bradley. Naturally, I'm in love.

A very interesting creature

A confusing creature.
A curious creature.
A cute creature.

Oh dear.

One thing I love...

I love, love, love wax sealed letters. It is kind of a run off of my love for Jane Austen movies. They are gorgeous. Romantic. Girly.Grown Up. There is nothing not to love about a wax sealed letter. I've never received a wax sealed letter. Does anyone want to make my day?

Another reminder that little things are the best things.

Vintage Design

Since the Garden of Happiness went random, posts, sanity and everything else I hold dear went with it. Do not despair! I have much planned for you. And yes, it might just involve my feet.

I am participating in an online Architecture Class this semester. I really really love it. My favorite part has been designing my website for it. I decided make it vintagey (Is that a word? If not, it is now!)(These are alot smaller than I thought they would be, sorry!)

For the first page, I kept the background white and added a vintage piece of clip art. This paged turned out to be one of my faves. I do love little things.

Another favorite, week one. I used a simple scale background and added a cute post card. I do love post cards too. I love how colorful the background is and the cute design of the card.

Week Two has some cute floral's on it. I had some white space on the image I was using for the background. To work around it, I made the lines into "dividers" for the title.

This was by far my least cohesive page. I really loved the background- the soft grey and powered pink with little birds. But because this was a repeating pattern, I couldn't piece it together like I did some of the other images. I used the image 4 times to make the background and then used stamps to try and cover up the "seams."

More Postcards! Week 4 is similar to week one, different post card and background though. I centered the postcard to make if more of the focal, since I didn't have the dividing lines on this page.

Same scales as from week one. I decided to re-use them because I loved the colors.

So there you have it, my vintage graphic deign. Do you like it? Please share your thoughts! :)

Litte things

I love little things. I get so excited over a bottle of hand sanitizer. A small candle. Pretty nail polish. I desperately want a salt and pepper shaker collection. I caught myself drooling over clothespins. (Not literally.)

So Happy Sunday to you, my friend. Remember to stop and enjoy the little things in life.

UPDATE: Two teenage boys are playing with rubber bands in my house. They are taking my post to heart, what good boys!

NOT a celebration....

I'm sick. It's actually a providential time, I don't have to go to Economics! If there's any time to be sick, Monday and Tuesday are most certainly it. I used to get sick every month (sick: cough, fever, sore throat.) I knew the days I would get sick. It always lasted for 5 days. It was pretty much a routine. Thankfully, I got over it, surprisingly by having teeth removed. Now, I get sick before my birthday, and after Christmas. Seriously! I have it written down.

Sincerely,
Even my sickness is organized!

PS: Can I just say I am sorry for doing such a terrible job celebrating? I have missed almost every day this month. I promise to do better. Make me keep it.

Wut I been doin'

(Had to throw in some mespeak in the title. It just wouldn't be proper without it).

So you have a question for me. I know it. Why haven't I been posting properly? Why haven't you been hearing every time I apply lip gloss? Well, maybe you aren't lamenting over the latter, but as for the rest, I know you are. May I apologize? I'm sorry. I have been so busy. I can't believe Its OCTOBER! I am having mental issues with that (and other) facts. What am I so busy with? I made you a list.

1. Homework
2. Watching Jane Austen Movies
3. School
4. Homework.
5. Fun
6.Homework
7. Baking
8. Homework.
9. Being amazing.
10. Homework.

Are you seeing a trend? So anyway folks, that's wut I been doin'. Thanks for listening. And me using homework 5 times is not that much of an exaggeration.

Sort of.

Baldness.

My father is bald. I wrote about it on Parents Day. Go ahead and look. I could write a very long post about balding, baldness and such. Or you could just re-read that and save us both some trouble. I'm so glad we're on the same page. :) I will return to my regular posting schedule soon. I promise.

Sincerely,
I drink cocoa at 8:30. This has nothing to do with balding, but you still need to hear it.

PS: Oh my. I am realizing this post was sort of "bald" in a sense. Celebration!

Why I love Hippie Vans...

Hippie Van. Love Bus. Whatever you call 'em, I love 'em. It has been a life long dream of mine to have a orange hippie van with flowers and zebra print curtains. Wouldn't you like to ride around in a van like that!??! I sure would. And yahoo for me, Volkswagen is coming out with the Bully in 2014, which happens to be a hippie style van. I am so thrilled. When I am 19 I will buy a 3 year old Bully and be as happy as a clam. I also dream about hippie vans. I am serious:

Setting: Me and Creighton MacConnell in a taxi passing a junkyard. I see a hippie van. It's orange. I fall in love. Then this conversation takes place.

Me: I really want a hippie van.
Creighton: Why on earth would you want one of those stupid things?
Me: I don't know...'cause they're cool?
Creighton: They are dirty and smelly and disgusting and the dumbest car on the planet.
Me: Well, I want a Beamer if that makes you feel better.
Creighton: Okay, good.

End of conversation. Beginning of hippie van love. I do want a beamer, but it is more likely that I will stumble upon a glorious hippie van in a junk yard, than waltz into a BMW dealership with enough money to actually buy a silver beauty with reclining seats.

So that is why I love hippie vans. Because they are cool. Because Zebra print curtains are optional. Because I dream about them. And because there's a Bully in a factory in China with my name on it.

Sincerely,
This is the only case where I love bully's.

The Ivy Ladies

I celebrated Curious Events day at a posh hotel. I was sitting eating pilaf and shrimp, and KJ tells me there are these lady's who look like ivy. I am somewhat confused. I continue eating my pilaf and shrimp and forget about the ivy ladies. Later dad and I were wondering around and we stumble across the ivy ladies. I am freaked.


Yes, those are ladies. Isn't this the most curious thing you've ever seen??? I was so creeped. Because dad and I were watching one, and then we look up and the other ivy lady's arm is right over our heads. They move around slowly. They hug the wall and wave their ivy fingers at little kids. They cover their face when you take a picture. The Ivy Ladies are spooky.

Sincerely,
Spooked.

PS:
See what I mean? So photogenic Miss Ivy!

Un-German.

I UN-German and proud of it. I love all you Germans, but I'm just fine with no German blood in my body. I do love Germany though. They eat the BEST food ever. I seriously wish Americans would be known for something other than greasy hamburgers and french fries.

Today I made a Sweet Genius show with Emily and Andy. It was so hilarious. My accent was perfect and their genius right on. It was truly amazing. The food was less than amazing, but so fun. I loved making my orange cream reduction sauce and my candied apricot strips. I'm not sure Nana enjoyed it as much as we did though. :)

Smile Day:
I am noticing I do weird things when I smile. I kind of tuck up my lip. It makes me look like I have a mustache, and I don't! Its very very bad.

Sincerely,
I am a Sweeeeet Genius....are YOU?

PS:
See what I mean?!?!? Between that and my pointy clavicle, I'm doomed.

Talking to a telephone pole

I don't do well with golf. And here is why: you have to be quiet! I am anything but quiet, so golf is rather difficult for me. Add to that that I can't swing a club worth a hoot, and it becomes clear that golf is not my sport. I dearly love the idea of Golf. But I can't execute.

Once when I was about 5, my grandpa took KJ and I golfing (Which means walking about 100 feet from his house.) After about 1/2 a hole, I decided I didn't want to play. So I sat there the whole time and talked... to a telephone pole. My grandpa says I spent at least 1 hour talking to a telephone pole. I sort of wish I remember this. I'm sure I had a wonderful conversation with that telephone pole.

Sincerely,
I love good listeners.

I love America.

Our family likes road trips. We sort of have too. Here are some pictures from our most recent.

For people who wear plaid shorts...

All you techies rejoice, today is the day for you! I'm no techie, but I can appreciate their technological minds. Techies are nerds. But nice ones! Brooke says I will marry someone who works for Apple. Apple workers are complete techies. And have you noticed they ALL wear plaid shorts? I am serious! Its really quite unusual.

Name your car day was yesterday. I didn't participate because I don't own a car yet. I should be thinking of names for my hippie van. I love to name things, as you all know by now. Our car(s) are already names. Elise got a rav4 this summer and named it Manishqua? I can't remember. It was a really good name whatever it was. And then our friends, they named their car the green bean. It is pretty accurate.

I'm having a bad techie moment. I'm playing a game on my iPod and its freezing up and the music is beeping, sort of. Where's my plaid shorts guy when I need him??

Sorry, that was kind of random, but I figured I'd tell you since I'm having techinal difficulties. AND OH MY! The DJ for Publix and Walmart are the greatest! I heard the Beach Boys, Michael Buble and Ingrid Michaelson. I was so happy. And I dont even listen to Ingrid.

The only reason I'm telling you all this nonsense is because it Techie day. Goodbye forever.

Sincerely,
Can't get rid of me that easy.

PS: This has nothing to do with Name your car day or anything with Techies, but once Elise got a microphone and she named it Ingrid. I think I should name my hippie van Ingrid. Or Blossom. You tell me.

PPS: I though of something else techie, my dad just got an iPad. If he'd only get plaid shorts!

Sophie and the stick

Sophie loves sticks. And she especially loves Bubble's stick. So of course, she needed this here stick.

Her plan of action is to distract, then go for the stick.Everything goes according the crafty plan of a young punk.
Unfortunately, Bubbles caught on to the mischievous plan.

A long spasm/fight followed.

This looks really uncomfortable.Finally, many awkward positions later, my punk claims the stick. Victory!
Congrats, punk. You won the Battle. You got the stick. Life is complete right?Of course.

That is, until Bubbles finds another stick.