4 Blessings

During these dreary, dull winter days, I find it helps to count my blessings... 

#1

 #2

#3

#4

Due to make an appearance in much sunnier and warmer weather...

(July 24 to be exact, and we couldn't be happier)

My Relationship with Bangs

Here's my girl with flat ironed (at a low temperature, mind you!) hair to show you how long it's getting :) 

Bangs are like bad boyfriends. Ya know, like bad-boy boyfriends. You see them hanging on some other girl and think to yourself how cool and edgy they look and how cooler and edger she even looks.

And so the crush begins. You're nievely unaware of the work involved and can only think of how you want them! Oh how much funner and more exciting your life will be with them!

You even make the mistake of telling your mom about your crush. You can hear her rolling her eyes over the phone. She sighs and tries to talk you out of it. Heaven knows she's seen this time and time again and knows it will only end badly.

But you ignore her! The rebellion has begun. The feeling seems to match your impending commitment. You dive in, boldly making the first move. Surprised by your own brashness you find yourself with this new dude (do).

And everything is how you dreamed it would be...for like two weeks.

It starts gradually. You may not even be able to put your finger on it--all you know is that they're acting weird. They're just not behaving like they have in the past. You finally decide to give them a good talking to (trim). And things are better--but again--only for like a couple of weeks. And before you know it you're involved in this uber clingy, high maintenence relationship that you did not sign up for.

And in the end, you finally decide it would be best for everyone involved to let them go. Knowing you'll be facing a long road of ugly twists, bumps and (bobby) pins along the way in an effort to hide the pain and regret you must deal with in order to grow strong enough to heal and find your inner-you once more.

I've got about 3 to 4 inches to go, myself. But who's counting?

~Sigh~

Happy Twenty-Twelve!

Penny playing at the Children Museum in Everett, WA.  I didn't think this horrible shot would turn into a nice outlook on the upcoming year.

After a five minute discussion with my mother, we've officially decided, we'll be calling this year "twenty-twelve" as opposed to "two-thousand, twelve". It rolls off the tongue a little easier, wouldn't you say?

I am happy to announce we made it safely back to our humble abode....seven bags later...and are quite content to be sitting in a crazy mess of unpacked clothes and toys and piles of Christmas decor waiting to be boxed up. Now, that the stress of getting all the toys home is over, we're all enjoying the hours of new entertainment. And to my surprise, Phil was able to work from home Wednesday and Thursday, allowing me to ease quite slowly back into reality. I'm very grateful I have been thrown a softball of a week, because according to my schedule next week we hit the ground running again. 

With all the time on my hands these last couple of weeks I couldn't help but think--a lot--about all sorts of things. Many of which ranged from happy and hopeful to sad and nastolgic. Of course, I had a very enjoyable time, but there is always the subtle sting of missing my family I didn't get to see during the holidays. That in addition to the shockingly long flight it takes to get to anywhere in the West (have I mentioned how long our flight was yet?) only reminded me as much as a glowing neon sign two feet in front of my face how difficultly far away we are from our loved ones. All of this wasn't making me all to excited to go back to NJ. Not to mention two pretty great friends of mine ironically moved away right before the holidays. This pretty much summed up my thoughts for the first week.

Sweet Jamie and Sharla who are all moved away now (sniff, sniff). I'm so grateful for them!

The second week came the more hopeful and excited feelings that only a new year can bring. New goals and projects came to mind as well as all of the exciting things we know this year has in store for us. I began missing friends and even my church calling (a break is always nice;) and so I started looking forward to getting home to our little house and getting 2012 underway! 

And so with my mixed emotions, I bring you, not really a list of new year's resolutions, but a list of new year's hopes. Things to look forward to (small and silly things) mixed in with a few goals here and there. Which the more I think about it are one in the same.

I even made 12 items for 2012. Clever, eh? I certainly wasn't doing to do 2,012 things...

1. Buy a cute new dayplanner. (I actually did that this morning--so, check!)

2. Start new goal to memorize scripture mastery scriptures. I don't know about you, but I didn't do this very well in seminary.

3. I've been participating in a very relaxed scripture reading schedule (Conference Ensign here, Book of Mormon there). I would like to start a more dedicated plan for reading of the Book of Mormon this year. This is always one of the quickest ways for me to get a happy outlook on life.

4. As for the excercising portion, my friend Ashli posted this and since I have a pedometer just lying around, I thought I'd give it a try:
"On a practical note- Buy a pedometer.  Did you know that the recommended number of steps one should take each day just for health is 10,000?!?  For weight loss more like 12,000 or more.  I recently started wearing a pedometer and I love it.  It automatically makes me want to move more, take the stairs, and park further away from the store.  I sometimes feel like I don't ever sit down in the day and yet my little pedometer was only reading anywhere from 4,000-6,000 steps a day.  If I go to the gym and even just walk a few miles I very easily get my 10,000+ steps in, sometimes just even in the hour workout. "
I started doing this a couple of days ago, and I'm here to tell ya, there is some room for improvement!

5. Purchase some fresh new tunes to listen to.

6. I'm almost finished reading, "Saving CeeCee Honeycutt" per my mom's suggestion. It is SO delightful. I think I'll be asking for some more suggestions for a good read. Do you have any?

7. I asked and recieved an Adobe Illustrator how-to book. It's designed so that each chapter is a lesson, so I'm excited to start tackling that.

8. Look for and try a couple of new recipes. Maybe even some healthy ones.

9. Get my winter TV shows lined up. So far I'm plan on watching "Once Upon a Time" (this might be my favorite), "Castle" (oh wait, no this is my favorite), "New Girl" (are we all liking it as much as we thought we would? I am), Survivor (when it starts in February) and probably American Idol because I know Phil will be watching that one. Is that too much?

Speaking of TV, I really have a hankering for some BBC Masterpiece Classics. Now, I looked on there schedule disappointed to only see something called Downton Abbey (second season). I mentioned my concerns on this subject to my mom, who not only watched the entire first season, but loved it. Did she care to tell me about it? No. Who else out there was enjoying this withoug telling me? Tell me, I dare ya. However, after doing my own research I discovered that you can watch past episodes online and it that is has to be up to the usual caliber of other classics because it's hosted by Laura Linney.

10. Try extra hard to stay withing allotted budgets.

11. Pick a fun and doable craft project.

12. Blog more! Blogging always becomes the 'reward' for when I get everything else done. So naturally, it never gets done. But I like it, so I think I'll try to make it more of a priority.