today = productive

..NOT

it is 4:54pm and today i have:

woken up at 12:42 

(did you just go whaaaaaat? because i did the same thing when i rolled over and looked at my phone. am i 16 years old again? well no. that is just what happens when for some freakish reason you aren't tired until 5:30 am)

looked through some mission photos

gchatted with brynne and grace

checked my google reader and fb

gone to the bathroom thrice

edited some photos

forced myself to learn some new photoshop tricks

listened to christmas music

finally taken out my retainer

to drink some eggnog

NOT showered

NOT changed out of what i wore to bed

NOT even looked outside once
*update. i just did look outside and it was DARK. that made me feel not awesome so i plugged in some christmas lights and then i felt awesome again.

(see? that is me with my christmas lights (and santa) feeling awesome)

NOT eaten anything

taken that photo above

decided to blog about this day

do you know what my favorite part about this is? i feel AWESOME. 

i was thinking about it and i'm grateful these things happened lately!

not only did we get the usual this time but we also got all that other stuff for just $1! i was really grateful we got it so cheap. the chips and salsa were free from doing a survey and the girl working didn't know what to charge us for just queso. is one dollar okay? yes. yes it is. and yes, two people ate all of that. 

i'm grateful for nieces and nephews being so talented. look at my niece emmy, who originally plays the violin, just playing the cello! and let's talk about how she does not look 15.  

i'm really grateful my coworker brings his little baby titus with him to meetings. i love baby titus.

 i'm grateful that i came out of provo temple last week and there was a full moon! 

it was much nicer looking in real life. 

i'm also grateful ryan took me and his nieces to see disney on ice!! such a nice, thoughtful thing.

 i really loved every minute of it.

the girls did too!

 love.

 tangled lanterns aaaaand all the princesses!!!! it was really the magical-est. 

(even though annie informed me that it was not magical and an example of something magical would be magicians. i think it is obvious that she is ryan's niece. )

i am also soooo grateful this little institute council 2007 reunion happened with best girfs leandra and danielle! sad that danielle keeps forgetting to blog the nicer photo so i guess this will do. 

 and leandra can be thanked for adding "that", "nakes",  and "tot" to my vocabulary in case you wondered where those came from. 

we caught up on each others lives, tried to catch each other up on all the other institute council members lives, made jokes, felt awkward for the ladies behind us who were all on their computers rather than talking to each other, and ate this nice food. it is so nice to catch up with old friends is it not? 

i'm also grateful i found something at that blasted bakery i liked! i've always thought it was dumb but i've changed my ways and if anyone wants to go there, i'm in. gimme that free cookie!

 i'm grateful for the once a year get togethers mission friend sister starley and i get to have at the olive garden. i'm especially grateful for this time because a. we were this guy's first table and b. he only gave us one check and c. i'm preeeeeetty sure he thought we were lesbians. after looking at that picture of me how could i blame him? turtleneck, blazer, hair slicked back in a bun. poor guy must have had no idea. 

i am grateful for the sunset tonight that was absolutely breathtaking.

i wish this picture did it justice. 

i'm also grateful i was able to switch things up and go to the jordan river temple tonight. i was so touched by the sincerity of the workers and the sweet spirit i felt all throughout initiatories. i'm also grateful for having had the time to notice how pretty the stained glass windows are! 

since i was so close to this pretty lady's house i was able to stop by and have a nice long chat. i'm grateful she was home, i'm grateful she let me come over and talk to her for hours, and i'm grateful i finally got the white party pictures! even though most of them were posted on facebook i'm going to post about it anyway because it was just that great.

and something not pictured that i'm grateful for is that there was a policeman on the side of the road and even though my front light was burned out on my car he did not pull me over bless his heart.
driving is so scary when you are being illegal! so i'm grateful i dodged that bullet.

in closing of this post i just want to say i'm grateful for simple things in life that can bring happiness. 

and i'm even more grateful for those simple things when the not so simple things don't quite go how you had hoped. 

oh highschool.

maybe i started this like three months ago and just found it in my drafts..i'm assuming it never made it to an actual post because it is weird and kind of lame but i'm going to go ahead and post it anyway!

so, i haven't quite decided where i want to live so i moved home for a few weeks (which was now three months ago). this seemed like a good opportunity to clean out all my bins and boxes of hud i've collected over the years. I KEEP EVERYTHING. like seriously. every notebook, binder, etc. i just got to the box with my english 1010 binder from mrs. hansen's class. i worked so hard on that stupid binder i guess it seemed important to keep it for the last six years! as i looked through it i couldn't help but laugh as i read different comments on drafts of essays from brynne, leila mojabi (what ever happened to her?), emma, and matt park. i really wish i could still remember the things i learned from that class, i don't even think i remember how to write a paper anymore to be completely honest (thank you taiwan! sorry mrs. hansen).

i also found my math 1050 class binder with all my homework and tests in it. i guess i thought if i kept it i could remember all the things i learned? but after thumbing through it i realized i don't remember a dang thing and looking at it was as if it was a foreign language so i decided to toss it. but it brought back good memories of the friends i made in his classes - rocking out to c.w. mccall with chris sampson, talking to christine about our younger love interests (haha), and telling blakely how i thought zack golden was such a creep to me and then felt mortified when she started dating him that summer.
i feel like this paragraph is just one of the many gems those people who just look at pictures will miss out on.
here are some other really important things i kept:

multiple efy training manuals

(why?)

every uvu planner i ever used

why this was in a psychology binder i will never know

oh look! i even kept some pictures. this would be me and my bff of the time sunny bennett with creepy dazzle the clown at her birthday party. gosh i loved that shirt.

also worth noting: i was very into scrapbooking in my earlier years, as seen by this photo

i loved finding this picture of my sister tricia and i at hogle zoo! i wish i still had those wax animals.

and also this really kind note brynne hand-crafted for me

i mean those dresses are not drawn but are cut and pasted! that equals love.

oh and my "homemade" really thought out door tags for my efy girls.

 (i won't mention the fact that having it means she didn't like it enough to keep it haha) 

i know what you are thinking! you wish i had been your counselor!

and oh my gosh i'm sooooo glad i kept every single ugly folder i ever used!

seriously.

one of my more favorite things is trying to find the most hideous folders,

buying it, and then loving the reactions of everyone as i pulled them out and used them each day!

i need to figure out a reason to have folders in my life again.

oh and did you know i studied psychology? well. if you didn't here is a happy little glimpse into the topics of conversation in my classes. if you can't read them let me make it easy for you:

techniques of arousal, the debate on oral sex, abortion issues, sex and the senior citizen, adultery, the wonderful world of std's, and pornography just to name a few. uvu aint no byu! that is for surrrre.

another treasure.

(why oh why would i keep this?)

so there we have it folks. the heaviest bag full of my entire education.

just completely thrown away. in the recycling bin of course.

kind of symbolic don't you think?

guys bnotd!!!!!

so i guess i'm retarded and it really was my fault i couldn't have comments! 

i got so desperate that i finally just put my problem on the help forum and this nice person knew exactly what was wrong:

"Here is the first place to look. Edit your post with the missing comment box and click Post Options, or (Options in the new interface.) It is possible to turn off comments on a single post, and I think that you will find that you somehow did this on this one. Change the setting and republish (or update.)

Let us know if this succeeded. If not, we will have to investigate other possibilities, but since it is only on one post, this is most likely."

I went and looked at that option and sure enough i had it on "don't allow" in the post options even though my overall setting said allow. thank you kind person who saved the day! i don't ever remember changing that and now i have to just click "allow" every time because it is defaulted to "don't allow" (perhaps google still secretly hates me) but who cares commenting is back! 

 i went back and fixed the last few posts so if you were just dying to comment on this, this, or this - now you can! and this was waaaay more information on this than i'm sure any of you wanted to know but i just wanted to post it in case anybody does the same thing in the future. okay love you bye!

hello november.

goodbye domo.

(i really felt so sad so instead of killing the layout completely i compromised and kept the color scheme. trying to look like an adult blows)

the first weekend of november was so nice!

it started out with taking ryan to red lobster (i was obsessed with that baby lantern thing at our table if you are wondering why that picture is happening) to celebrate how awesome he is at school. 99% on an anatomy mid-term? who even does that well in that crazy class?

(..the answer is ryan)

we were supposed to either go to my nephews game in logan or to mr. wilson's fundraiser afterwards but because of the snow we decided it might be best to not travel very far. so instead we spend some quality time with richard marsh eating nice treats (such a great host!) and having a netflix parks and rec marathon. i should have taken a picture of this time but i forgot so you will just have to imagine it.

saturday we headed up to snowbird for their annual customer appreciation days free tram ride.

we did it last year and loved it so much so i'm glad we finally had a free afternoon to do it this year too.

look at all the snoooooooooooow!!!

i could not get over how gorgeous it was

like seriously. it was like right out of a Christmas story book type gorgeous.

and since it was the first real snowfall of the year we pretty much had the canyon to ourselves!

i feel sad that in a few weeks it will just be packed with skiers and snowboarders and just won't really be the same.

and now we turn to iphone photos because my camera died:

do you see the heart made out of those trees?!

it was like ten degrees but we loved it up there

as mad as i feel at snow for making it freezing and scary to drive and sometimes down right dreary,

it sure is beautiful.

last time it was snowing and super foggy so i was way surprised to find this nice view!

i put that picture of my feet up to show just how much snow there was.

and look at that great green and those skiers!

since we had just been up there a few days before i was interested to see how much it had changed:

..i'd say it looked pretty different haha

and i'm so glad we did because look at that great sunset view!

not pictured would be ryan getting out of the car and us freaking out for ten minutes at how great everything looked while listening to Christmas classics on fm 100.

we almost didn't do the free tram ride this year! can you believe that?

do you ever have those times when you can't decide on something but then end up doing it

 and think "i am SO glad we did that"?..this was one of those times.

we didn't really have any plans that night but knew ryan wanted to find a good beanie and we were hungry so we headed to the mall to multi-task.

and look at puppy calendars!

(that guy knew i was really taking a picture of him and it got uncomfortable)

ryan is determined to own one of those some day.

we had a fun time and almost felt like we were at an event since we never ever go there haha.

ryan got a great beanie (and so did i!). i got some gloves, a much needed adult looking wallet, and a gray purse which were all on sale! so many wins.

then we ended the night with making this great pumpkin crumble that brynne made while i was at her house. by the time we got all the ingredients, picked out a movie (we are 7 year olds) at blockbuster (and stopped thumbing through a magazine dedicated entirely to the movie breaking dawn haha), and finally made the dang thing it was midnight. buuut with day light savings happening that night i felt great about it.  

aaaand if you care to comment it looks like you can comment on the post below

for some reason blogger will let it happen on that one but not on any of the others i posted this week..