What do you people DO?

I didn't go to work today. We have a trade show this week and my flight was at 3 so it wasn't really worth going to the office just to turn around and go to the airport a few hours later. So I did what I always do on days off-slept in and then went to workout. I got to the gym around 10 and to my utter surprise-it was PACKED. All the machines were taken, the weight stations were buzzing and there was a full Step class going on in the studio. It was busier than I've ever seen it at six in the evening when I usually go.

And I thought to myself-I'm only here because I'm not where I'm supposed to me, what is everyone else's story? Who are you people who workout at 10 in the morning? What do you do for a living? I need to know your secrets. A girl could really get used to that lifestyle you know.

A Quarter of a Century

Today is a very big day for my sister Emily as she is turning the big two-five.

Things to know about my sister:

1) she has the best laugh. And I'm not just saying that because we have the same one.
2) she can arrange flowers, candles, pictures, furniture, dishes, etc etc like she learned it from Martha Stewart
3) her wardrobe is hipper and fresher than girls who spend five times as much and still look like they just bought what was on the mannequin
4) she is not afraid to throw a party
5) she has better taste in music than anyone I know
6) she has already run and marathon and served a mission and has a cool job at a hip ad agency
7) she owns a PS3. Yeah.
8) I totally miss her

In honor of her birthday, I present a slide show of Emily photos. Careful, the cute might melt your screen.












Happy Birthday Sister.

The Best Medicine

When I was in college I had a really good friend named Brandon. Aside from being smart and cool and incredibly kind, he was also one of the funniest boys I had ever met. I was talking to him on the phone one night over the summer and my mom said, "I hope whoever you marry can make you laugh like that, it's a real gift to enjoy someone that much."

I was thinking about that this weekend because I think I laughed more this weekend than I have the whole rest of the month combined. San Francisco Emily came to play with me on Friday night and we stayed up until a ridiculous hour telling stories and laughing so hard I could actually feel it in my abs the next day. She left Saturday afternoon and I spent the evening with some other friends, two of whom just had a baby. The two husbands in the group are two really funny men and again, I was in stitches pretty much the whole time.

I have sort of a dramatic personality and I tend to swing from being really up to really down. It's a bit of a roller coaster way to live and in the down parts of my life I wish I was a bit more even. But when I am with people I love, and I'm laughing so hard that I can't breathe I am incredibly grateful for the depth with which I feel things.

On this date

Seven years ago I finished my LDS mission to Switzerland.

Seven years. Completely unbelievable.

A puzzle

Can someone please explain to me why even though I know that water and an apple would pull me out of the 3:00 energy dip better than Diet Coke and peanut M&M's, I still have to have the debate with myself almost every single day?

The Family Car

Raise your hand if you watched Sesame Street when you were a kid.
That's what I thought.
Now raise your hand if there were skits you could watch over and over and sometimes tried to copy with your little brother late at night when you should have been sleeping.

My friend April posted this on another site the other day and I have not been able to stop watching it.

So get ready to spend a few minutes in nostalgia-town as you watch The Twiddlebugs go to the zoo.

Let's Call it Off

Back in October I posted this song about the rush of meeting someone new. I love that song, I love those lyrics and it turns out I REALLY love Peter Bjorn and John. They have a new album set to finally reach the U.S. on February 6 that I am anxiously awaiting but I got a little taste from the folks at Pitchfork. This one is called "Let's Call it Off" and frankly, seems to fit my experience just a little better.

When you decided to knock on my door
Did you remember what happened before?
It just didn’t sparkle it just didn’t grow
Some things look better inside of the store

Did you agree
We should let it be
And did you agree
It’s a must
Let’s call the whole thing off

Anyway, it's a swell little song and I think you should put in on your iTunes, in your iPod and then burn it to a disk to listen to in the car. Which might be what I do when I really love a new tune.

Home Improvement

After spending the weekend hopscotching between my mom's lovely new house, my sister's uber-cute apartment and Christopher and Tasha's completely awesome condo, I was feeling a little bit like my own house could use some sprucing. I have a few projects in my bedroom that are kind of time intensive that I certainly intend to get to but since I had a few hours to kill on Martin Luther King Day I figured I would tackle that eyesore that is my bathroom.

We moved in about a year ago and my roommate said I could do whatever I wanted with it. Up until now that consisted of hanging exactly one framed piece of art. The problem is that it is just kind of an odd bathroom. Our landlord would prefer we not paint so we are stuck with these sort of pale pink walls and bone colored counter tops. Also, the counter goes on for what feels like an entire football field. I personally would have put in two sinks if I had been designing this particular bathroom but as it stands now, the end of the counter often becomes a gathering place for junk. Towels or hairdryers or makeup cases sit there for undisturbed for days because there is just so. much. space.

So I headed off to Target, determined to do something about my sad bathroom. I do spend quite a lot of time in there and wanted it to feel more relaxing than utilitarian. I wondered around for quite a while, trying to look at things the way my mom and sisters do. I was finally struck by inspiration in the candle aisle. I made a quick stop in housewares, and finished up with a trip to Pier 1 and Bath and Body Works to complete my idea.

I got a wee bit of advice from my mother and from Emily and then I got started. A few months ago I read on a blog I like that IKEA had some great little jars in their kitchen department that would make cute holders for cotton balls and Q-tips. In an uncharacteristic display of initiative, I actually went out and bought them. I even went out on a limb and bought a spice rack jar for the Q-tips instead that turned out to be a perfect way to display AND dispense them. I don't know why it's so fun to use an item for something other than it's originally intended purpose but it is. Then I bought a cute Method soap dispenser in the green color I've decided will clash the least with the walls that I hate. And for now our toothbrushes are in a purple goblet that happens to be the other color I'm using for now. You work with what you have in a rental!

Then I tackled the LONG counter problem with an idea I borrowed from Tasha's bathroom. I bought a little woven tray at Pier 1 and set out a bunch of lotions, body spray and shower gel. They were having a huge sale at Bath and Body Works so I stocked up. I actually hate their lotions from a moisturizing standpoint and am forever loyal to my Aveeno BUT, I do love to smell good. They make layering a scent easy and affordable. Both of which I love. When those things are in a drawer I forget about them-now that are out I am actually using them. Plus it will be nice for guests as well. Lastly, it eliminates the junk collecting spot. I actually moved it out a few inches from the wall after I took this picture but you get the idea.


My final touch was to add some color and interest on the other side of the room. I love having candles all over the place(despite Samantha from SATC's comment that "candles are the new cats for single women")so I bought a bunch in different sizes and colors. I put them on a plate originally intended to serve asparagus or something and then filled it in with little white rocks. Then I hung a new hand towel in that nice green.


It's amazing how much nicer the whole room feels now. Last night I lit the candles and turned off the fluorescent lights while I took a shower. It was so peaceful and lovely and I swear I slept better last night then I have in weeks. There is an article in this month's Domino that talks about how your home is the center of everything you do and the more you love your home, the more light and energy you have for the rest of your life. I think in the past I have foolishly done that single girl thing where you think "I'll wait to make a home until I have one of my own." But I am now committed to making my house into a real respite from the rest of my world.

Family Hour

One thing we haven't done as a family in a long, long time is to get our pictures taken. So for Christmas for my parents we decided to hire our friend Mike to try to wrangle all of us for a real live sibling photoshoot.
Sterling and Megan
Tasha and Christopher
Logan, Christopher, Sterling
Tasha, me, Megan, Emily and Elizabeth

And the whole crew. It already looks like a ton of people and we aren't even halfway done adding in-laws. Perhaps I am a little biased but I think it's a pretty good looking crowd.

Back in Black

I'm in Salt Lake this weekend, reuniting the whole family to welcome Logan back to civilian life in a first world country after his two year LDS mission in the Phillipines.

Sterling and Megan will be in on Saturday so last night the other five of us treked to the airport to pick him up. My parents were there as well but aren't quite the picture fiends the rest of us are.


We waited and waited as every single other human on the plane came down the escalator. We wondered what he would be like-would he still be our Elmo-impersonating, music loving, high octane little brother? Then seven adorable elders appeared at the top of the stairs and Logan proceeded to the do The Robot on the way down. Yup, that's our boy.

He was so excited to see us.









My cute grandparents showed up then. At an age where most women are settling into their polyester pants, it's pretty awesome that my grandma looks better in jeans than I do. (Although this bodes well for me now that I am over thirty)
We struggled for quite awhile to take a decent sibling photo-but i think this one tell you all you need to know about our family. We just don't settle down very well. We kept my poor step-dad up until inhumane hours last night with our laughing. He and my mom don't know how long we kept silently giggling long after they finally went to bed.
So then we took Logan outside and his tropical climate lungs stopped cold in the Salt Lake air.
Isn't he adorable?
We got into the car and Logan put some Pinback on the iPod for the first time in two years Which led to this.
And possibly led to this as well.

Welcome home Logan. We really really missed you.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

This guy!




TODAY!!

FINALLY!!!

Beer and a Game

Last weekend Greg's girlfriend hosted her first ever "Mormon Party". A mormon party is distinguished from a regular party mostly because this is pretty much as hard as the beverage choices get
To keep it really legit, we also enjoyed a menu of Jello salad, funeral potatoes, and some casserole that Greg actually made himself.

After we finished making fun of stereotypical Mormon food and how everyone always has to call their mom to figure how to make it, we pretty much pigged out.

Beckie had just gotten a beautiful new flat screen TV so Jimmy and Rob took in a little football. The other boys eventually drifted in as well while the girls talked in the other room. So it was maybe like a Mormon Junior High School party for awhile there.
After we polished off the casseroles and before we started playing board games, Nelly discovered the red hot cheetos. If you aren't looking for a new snack to get addicted to, I suggest you stay away from these suckers. Believe me.
See what I mean? You can't eat just one.
Rob managed to get off Beckie's bed and join us in the living room. I promise Rob didn't just lay around acting sexy the whole time though.
Sometimes he played games on his Blackberry.
So after dinner we decided to play boys against girls Trivial Pursuit. I am convinced that entire encyclopedias about men and women and how they interact could be written by observing them play games against each other.

Do you see the look of exasperation on Nate's face here? That was because Greg would read the girls our question, then we would bat around two or three different answers, talk them to death and then finally settle on a completely new one that usually came out of nowhere. Meanwhile the boys would pretty much just come up with an answer and that was that.
I would like to respectfully point out however that our method DID contribute to the girl's team leading pretty much the entire game (5 to 2 as pictured here)and eventually basically crushing the boys.

Always with a smile and a Cheetoh.
The highlight of the game though was when the boys got a question about the insect that destroyed the crops of the Utah Pioneers and a room of returned missionaries couldn't come up with"Mormon Crickets"

A fun evening was had by all and Beckie proves she deserves her post as coolest honorary mormon ever.

Event of the Year

So I have a friend named Mike from Salt Lake who I have known for years. Then I have this friend Kim who I met in Boston and who is one of the coolest girls on planet earth. One year ago a mutual friend of theirs suggested that maybe they might get along and the rest is a pretty romantic story about two crazy kids falling in love over the phone, Mike moving to Boston for the summer and them getting hitched the day before New Year's Eve. Corey was also friends with Kim back in Beantown so she came out for the wedding and made helpful faces while Emily put together centerpieces, flower arrangments, and the brides bouquet.
Em also did these simple but lovely centerpieces. Nobody tell that we lit candles in a church please.

They got married in a really pretty church in Provo surrounded, literally because we all stood in a circle, by people they loved. And then they were Mr. and Mrs.! And then we had lunch!

I finally got to meet Mike's cute as heck nieces Emma and Lucy. Also their mom Chanelle and the infamously awesome Cindy Mindy Pindy.
Danny was very excited about his cherry Diet Coke
Me, Kim, Jake, Mike, Corey and Emily

Ben took some photos with his really cool camera.
The elusive Dave D. The Boston Trio.

And all our sassy shoes.
The best part of the day was that we stopped for Big Gulps at the 7-11 right after the wedding and ran into the bride and groom. Their first official act as married folks-stoping at The Sev.

The reception was the next night and doubled as a totally awesome New Year's Dance Party in a warehouse in downtown Salt Lake. Mike hangs with a pretty hipster crowd so I spent the whole evening feeling like I was in a live action MySpace page. In a good way.

Mike had told us to invite whoever we wanted since it was reception/PARTY so Whit and Cam came by to hang for a while.

I'm pretty sure this is Cameron and me disagreeing about something but there was so much FUN in the air, we did it with smiles on our faces.
Emily, Tasha, Whitney, me, Cameron, Betsy and her friend Steve

Good old Mikey. I wish I had some pictures of him and his wife smoking up the dance floor.

Corey and Dave were so engrossed in conversation they forgot to dance.

New Year's is usually so anticlimatic but this particularly night was really fun. Mike and Kim were glowing, I saw lots of friends in the same place who are never in the same place and I got to dance my face off. Pretty much a perfect way to start 2007.

Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Kelly. Love you guys.