re-blogging myself...

 

i orginally posted this two years ago.

 

but....it's my favorite. so you get treated to it again.

 

may i present 

"four years of polaroids"

or alternately

"my brother hates santa"

 

i know. i'm adorable. and look slightly asian. (that must be where my brother gets it) also, santa's eyes are boring into my soul.

please enjoy my inexplicable fourth of july outfit. patriotism and christmas have always seemed like a natural combination to me.

rocking the classic denim on denim combo. and trying to ignore my brother as he rudely expresses his distaste for santa. boys have no social tact.

don't cry brother. you're wearing moon boots for crying out loud. life can't get much better.

 

happy almost christmas!

december letters

dear new (used) couch,

 

i love everything about you. i love how comfortable you are. i love that you were free. i love that you made our living room approximately half the size it was before.

 

.

 

dear headphones,

 

thank you for keeping the music i listen to at work a secret. (patsy cline and nirvana right in a row....and no one's the wiser)

 

.

 

dear dr. marten boots,

 

thanks for keeping my feet so warm and making me look "angry". i'm sorry i questioned whether or not i was still cool enough to wear you.

 

.

 

dear savings account,

 

you have money in you! doesn't that make you feel happy? it sure does it for me.

 

.

 

dear tiny christmas tree,

 

i'm sorry the cats keep knocking you over and hiding your ornaments under the couch. and i'm sorry i don't feel the need to redecorate you anymore.

 

.

 

dear monthly roommate reunions,

 

you are awesome. three months in a row! i think a tradition has officially been formed.

 

.

 

dear great harvest bread,

 

after making a sandwich on you, no other sandwich will ever be as good.

 

.

 

dear cats,

 

i'm glad you're friends, and that you like sleeping on our bed. even though one of you (wallace) gets to sleep cuddle with brian more than i do.

 

.

 

dear husband,

 

pretty excited about our first christmas together. remind me to buy some mistletoe.

 

 

 

oskar and wallace.

i sometimes make an effort to not endlessly talk about our cat.

 

sometimes.

 

but now that we've adopted a second cat, i think all bets are off.

thusly, here is the story of oskar. and wallace.
 

 

 we got wallace on sort of half a whim. we had always talked about getting a second cat, and had looked longingly at kittens when we stumbled on adoption fairs. but we had always decided our apartment was probably too small. (it's not, as it turns out).

it was a fateful saturday night when we were stopping in for some litter and cat grass (how is it that i've now mentioned cat grass twice on my blog) and CAWS had an adoption fair set up right in the store!

anyways. we saw wallace. we liked wallace. we wanted to take wallace home. however. we decided to responsibly wait a day and make sure it was a good decision. (also this might be a good time to mention that we originally thought wallace was a boy. and named jake. finding out she was a girl named ginger suprisingly did not sway us)

19 hours later we were back at petsmart, and nearly an hour after that we had two grey cats in our apartment.

but this story isn't really about me and brian. (although we really really like our newest family member) this story is about oskar and wallace.

 

oskar was not that pleased that we brought a friend home for him. for two days all we heard from him was hissing and a loooooow growl. he actually did a pretty good impersonation of me when i'm overstressed and low on chocolate chips.

 

but wallace was relentless in her pursuit of oskar's affection. she would sneakily try to cuddle with him when he was already asleep.
 

 



and sometimes when he wasn't....

 

 

and then suddenly (and a little surprisingly, considering the level of pissed oskar had reached) they became friends!

 

 

 i would even go so far to say that now they're BEST friends.
 

 

and now i think we're officially a cat family. which i'm into.
it's better than being like...a ferret family.
 

 

in conclusion. everyone should get pets. and probably a second pet.

because your first one needs a friend!

two unrelated photos.

i just like this photo of my family taken alllll the way back in march.

it was bright out. apparently.

 

also, i miss my red hair.

 

and if you wanted another reason why i married brian walker, here's a good one.
 

coachella, round two.

since a lot of my life passed by undocumented in the whirlwind of engaged summer 2012, i'm going to be posting some summer recap posts whenever i get around to it. because apparently my blog is the only place i can put pictures.

 

 anyway. last spring ashley and i once again road-tripped down to indio, california to attend the three day music festivus that is coachella. this year we were joined by janiece, one of our favorite people!

 

oh man. i have to be honest with you, and say the whole trip was kind of a blur. mostly because we were basically in a heat coma the entire time. temperatures reached 107 and the mornings before the music started were spent laying under the meager canopy shade with misters, counting beads of sweat, and trying to stay alive.

 

dramatic, yes? but it was still a blast. some of my favorite shows that we saw were the black keys, m. ward ("m. ward can do whatever the hell he wants!"), bon iver, the shins, st. vincent (seriously. i worship her kick ass-ness), the head and the heart, childish gambino (troy and abed singing hiiiiiiip hop), florence and the machine, santigold (the best dancing of the whole weekend), real estate, and first aid kit. radiohead was good but looooooong. pretty sure we ditched out before they were done. dr. dre and snoop dogg were also suprisingly entertaining and brought back many fond dance party memories. also there was the much lauded appearance of tupac. (although since we went the second weekend it wasn't much of a surprise)

 

 

 some of my favorite memories (of the few i can remember) include
 

- the campers with the giant jenga game

- janiece pounding some vodka to celebrate her birthday (and maaaaybe a beer bong)
 "i need a row of misters"

- the dinosaur art installation (seen below)

- how funny things are when it's too hot to breathe

- "sorry car behind me, i was talking to my arms"

- how our camping neighbors got excited for every single beer bong they did. (there were sooooo many. so. many.)

- "i was wondering if you guys partied after i went to sleep" "yeah, we had some ring pops"

- i think it was the...second? night. but ashley and i were stumbling back to our tent after showering and babbling almost incoherently the entire time. there was mention of a corn cob god. coachella makes you a special kind of tired funny.

- some really really great food. we would barely eat all day because it was so hot. so when it finally cooled off and we could eat dinner everything tasted amaaazing. i can remember eating crab fries, fantastic fish and chips, and some sort of noodle dish. also, ice cream!
- the first night there there was a guy set up in the entertainment area jamming on a saxaphone. his shirt kept coming untucked from his (too short) pants and riding up his stomach and the whole thing was really great.
- sharing an air mattress with ashley "if we end up spooning in the middle of the night DO NOT wake me up"









well there you have it. five days summed up into...that.
honestly, i'm impressed i was able to remember that much.

25 before 26

so i'm just going to be straight with you and say that my 24 before 25 list wasn't the most successful thing i've ever endeavored to do, coming in at 9 out of 24 tasks accomplished.

 

sheesh.

 

 but you know, instead of like...painting my dresser, i went to a semester of school, got engaged, planned a wedding, moved, and got married! so i feel like that should count for something.

 

so here's my list for my 25th year of life, with some carried over from last year's list.

 

 

1. decorate our apartment. this means things on the walls. and maybe a rug. curtains if i'm feeling reeeeally ambitious.

 

2. make a wedding photo album.

 

3. create a dinner board of some kind. ideally a chalkboard, with a place to store favorite recipes. like unto this. (but probably a lot less fancy)

 

4. make our own wall art.

 

5. make an oversized cross stitch.

 

6. learn to crochet.

 

7. visit portland.

 

8. change my last name. (something i maybe haven't done yet)

 

9. make homemade poptarts.

 

10. write thank you cards to people. (this doesn't include our wedding thank you cards...which are still waiting to be done...)

11. read 20 books. and i'm counting the snl book i just finished. 19 to go!

12. throw a party.

13. learn to (somewhat) use brian's grown up camera.

14. go on a waterpark tour. this is HAPPENING this year, you guys. seeing as everyone i wanted to do this with was engaged last summer, i think it might be a little easier to coordinate this time around.

15. establish some kind of regular exercise plan.

16. get over my fear of bread and make some. pizza dough too.

17. take pictures with my actual camera instead of just my phone. poor neglected camera.

18. visit boise many many times.

19. find a different job. (if anyone has any leads with this...i'm listening)

20. continue to pare down my wardrobe. no one needs 14 cardigans.

21. try out 5 new restaurants.

22. make a fancy cheesecake.

23. buy a sleeping bag. go camping.

24. find a photobooth.

25. pop-up dinner party.

new truths recently realized. or old truths more fully realized.

i like cleaning. i always knew i liked things clean, but living with roommates cleaning was always so irritating. "these are someone else's dishes, and this is someone else's bread crumb mess and WHO LEFT THEIR GROSS SOCKS ON THE COUCH?" and then when someone did eventually give in and clean, it only stayed that way for about 15 seconds. my point is....now that i know it's just me and brian (and occasionally oskar) making things messy, i kind of really enjoy cleaning. when brian is gone to the library, i get home as fast as i can and clean all the things! because cleaning when i'm by myself is it's own special joy. i can't explain it. but it's great. 

i can't pretend that the things i get excited over are usually cool. but they've become even more lame. like when our silverware organizer came in the mail and i opened it before i even took off my coat. (and lest anyone think i'm really picky about silverware organizers, our kitchen came equipped with one drawer. one. and said drawer is too narrow to accomodate any regular and easily located organizer. thusly, to the amazon i went)

i've listened to skinny love many many many times. and i still don't know all the words. ashley reassured me by saying that justin vernon himself doesn't know all the words, and purposely mumbles them so he can make up new ones every time he sings it. i fully support this theory.

oskar the cat is like our child. i've always known this, but it's become even more evident. we talk about him (and to him) a lot, and send each other pictures of his adventures. and since he's the neediest of all the cats, i think he's good preparation for parenting.

i thought i would always be the one making poor dinner choices. but as it stands so far, brian has been the one to suggest both ice cream and marshmallow mateys for dinner. (not at the same time. although....that would probably be great) being a supportive wife, i chose to go along with his ideas.

my neighbors dog might make me dislike dogs. it just howls. for large portions of the day. like he's being continously squirted with a water gun or something. i'm not surprised oskar is always so desperate to go outside when i get home. he legitimately dislikes dogs and their noises.

spider plants are suprisingly resiliant. i wouldn't say i've been trying to kill ours. but...i haven't so much been actively working to keep it alive. however it just keeps on doing it's spider plant thing, and survives being watered like once a month.

the end.

as of late.

loving: my life. i'm not one to make big blanket statements like that. at least not in the positive sense. i can say big things like "this apartment is the worst" or "i would literally rather die than go to work today" but not often for things of a happy nature. however, i'm pretty satisfied with things. brian and i have a happy simple life and it's very agreeable to me. there are things that i would maybe change (see work reference above) but for the most part i'm kind of the most settled and content i've ever been.

reading: the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. i'm not too far into it, but i really like it so far. it's written from the point of view of an autistic 15 year old boy solving the mystery of who murdered his neighbors dog. it's pretty intriguing. i also just finished live from new york: an uncensored history of saturday night live, which i really loved. brian and i started watching the first season of snl and it's made me realize my previously unknown love of gilda radner and john belushi.

watching: cougar town. soooo much cougar town. i need everyone to understand that it's really funny. and in no way about cougars (the cat or the middle aged woman). anyway, i've been renting it from the library and just found out there are only three seasons so far, and the third season isn't out on dvd yet. basically this happened.

anticipating: christmas and all that entails. including, but not limited to, wrapping presents, decorating, baking things, watching elf, drinking too much hot chocolate, buying a (tiny) christmas tree, and brian getting a break from school.

listening to: the records i got for my birthday (avett brothers - the carpenter and good old war - come back as rain) and basically my whole ipod. i've just been browsing it and picking artists at random to fill my 8 hours of desk time a day. soon i will probably start listening to some christmas music.

working on: crafting christmas decorations. i should be working on actually putting things up on the walls. that's a thing grown-ups probably do.

wishing: i didn't have severe writers block whenever i try to document my life. here, my private blog, my journal. i'm just coming up blank everywhere.

...

this reminds me of stuff i used to listen to in college. which is a good thing.

words.

things i think, or need to think more often.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

every day.

 

every day - at work

 

every day - to brian

 

 

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

things married people do. (based on recent experience)

- become obsessed with Lana Del Ray

- start watching cougar town

- almost adopt another cat

- go on a lot of walks

- convince their wives to get out of their snuggly beds for a late night orange juice and candy run.

- go to a laundromat with a name too embarassing to utter

- eat an entire can of orange rolls over the course of two conference sessions

- get extremely excited about ikea runs and the assembling of ikea furniture (that may fall more to the husbands proclivities..)

- torture their friends and family by not posting their wedding pictures yet

awkward and awesome.

awkward.

hanging outside with oskar when a neighbor walked out of his apartment and over to the side of the complex. he came back zipping up his pants and headed back inside. oh hey, i'm just reading. also, does your apartment not have a bathroom? cause mine does.

that same neighbor being in the hallway when i was carrying oskar inside and asking if he was my cat. umm. yes.

waking up to an old gravely voice yelling "BobbAY" outside our bedroom window. (please query brian for an exact re-enactment of this occurance)

getting a lecture for the entire duration of my haircut on how terrible my ends are. yes, maybe i've let my hair slide a little this summer. but also, you gave me a lopsided haircut, so maybe you should keep your opinions to yourself.

minding my own business and waiting to cross the street when someone offered me a slice of bacon from the window of their car. you know. like people do.

having an entry in my google search history be "cat depression"

awesome.

walking around downtown on a recent date night and encountering some really awesome street musicians. they had managed a crowd at 8:30 on a monday night, that's how cool they were.

being married. for serious.

getting my period! maybe an overshare, but i think any newly married girl who has previously never had to worry about the possibility of being pregnant would echo my sentiments.

finally seeing the head and the heart with brian. (and bryan john appleby. who we were supposed to see a long time ago, but that was maybe the same weekend i decided we should take a break....anyway. you should look him up, he's incredible.)

going to a fall equinox party. i celebrated by eating a lot of hotdogs and s'mores and getting a reeeeally good campfire smell. because....fall.

going to an snl party on the same night and being reunited with our favorite newly married couple. (maybe sitting and watching tv doesn't qualify as a party to you, but that's why we're probably not friends)

almost waking up brian in the middle of the night because i found it so important to tell him we need to buy the seasons of parks and rec on cyber monday.

via

sadie, sadie

i have a lot of thoughts and feelings (she doesn't even go to this school!) and pictures relating to getting married, being married, and going on married vacations. however the current amount of thoughts and feelings and pictures is too much to foist on anyone at this point and i'm still trying to sort through all of it myself.

 

eventually i will be able to present all these things in some sort of organized fashion.

 

but right now i won't.

 

and i won't go on and on about how much i love being married (lots and lots) and how magical our wedding day was (seriously. magical) or other lovey goopey things that used to make me roll my eyes when other people would say them. (but just know that i'm using all my self-control to hold that back)

 

i also won't reveal how many times i've listened to this song today. (it's i will wait by mumford & sons. maybe it's just a pet peeve of mine, but i hate clicking on a hyperlink to a song i would never eeeever listen to)

 

or how many page visits i've made to brittany's blog post about our wedding.

 

but i will share this picture shot by our crazy awesome photographer missy allen.

 

 

and tell you that it makes me 8 different kinds of happy to look at it.

 

daisies are the friendliest flower.

the biggest problem in my life currently is that i don't know where my copy of you've got mail is and i desperately want to watch it.

the second biggest problem is that i feel like i miiiight have too much to do to justify sitting down and enjoying a hanks/ryan lovefest for 119 minutes. (that is the exact time of the movie. i looked it up)

there are also those small problems of being simultaneously so excited to get married that it cannot get here fast enough, and also so horrified by all the things that still need to be done that i need to tack an extra month onto this whole she-bang.

anyway. let me know if you have a copy of you've got mail i can borrow.

recent milestones

hellllo married apartment.

oskar getting moving anxiety

- first time signing a lease for a salt lake apartment. (my current place never required me to sign a lease. my landlord might not be the most on top of it person i've ever met)

 - moving brian into our apartment! it took us over two days but we did it! all by ourselves!*
    *brian's friend darren did help us once with brian's tv. he asked us why we hadn't asked for more help and we both just kind of looked at each other. i don't think it even occured to us.

- noting all the firsts in our apartment. first music played (england - the national) first time kissing in the kitchen, first food made (pizza), first time realizing we didn't have a pizza cutter or hot pads...

- buying our first couch! (from a ksl ad, in a somewhat sketchy neighborhood)

- learning how to use a rug doctor to clean aforementioned couch

- going to ikea and buying our first piece of new furniture. (a bookcase for our record collection. and when i say "our", i mean "mostly brian's")

 25 days!!

my attention span isn't long enough to write a focused blog post

it pains my soul to reject people. i posted my apartment on ksl monday night and had approximately 800 people call me in 24 hours. some of their voicemails were so heartfelt! i just wanted to find them all places to live (i told brian this, and he suggested i become a real estate agent...)

i do have one piece of advice for the girl whose DAD called me about the apartment. if you want to sound like a grown up, don't have your parents make inquires about future dwellings. the end.

i like my fiance. he does things like buy twix ice cream bars, and sing in falsetto, and buy me the first season of "what i like about you" (but not without making fun of me first)

i'm getting married in almost exactly one month. that makes me feel a lot of emotions. (ask anyone who's had to talk to me in the past week)

i'm pretty sure i should get paid time off for being engaged. sick time, maternity leave, pre-wedding leave? that should definitely be a thing.

i'm in full-on finals mode. like, where instead of studying you take a nap? except now instead of doing wedding stuff i watch an episode of the o.c. (i have revealed a lot of embarassing tv tendencies in this post...)

i think open your eyes by snow patrol will always make me feel feelings.

i've had five bowls of cereal in the past two and a half days.

brian moves into our married apartment on saturday! it has a cute blue door and room for EXACTLY two people and one cat. i'm going to try to sneak in as many justin bieber posters as i can before future husband notices.

and last, but possibly most important. thatcher grey sweeten (of hailey and challis sweeten) is two days old today. i'm counting down the days till i get to cuddle him within an inch of his life.

and very very last a few engagement pictures. (since i still haven't taken the time to post any)

.

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”

— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

good news/bad news

good news.
i get married in 45 days! (anyone sick of this countdown yet? be sure to not let me know)


bad news.
i get married in 45 days. it's seeming more and more likely the wedding won't be so much...planned in time.


good news.
cinnamon life was on mega sale yesterday.


bad news.
i only bought two boxes.


good news.
got to spend the weekend in boise with the sweetens. i just love them. and their beagle. and their unborn child.


bad news.
we can't move to boise for several years. (brian would have already packed up and left if it was at all feasible)


good news.
i sometimes think i finally "get" my job


bad news.
having my boss give me a looooong explanation about a task. and then having to tell him that i had stopped listening halfway through.


good news.
spending time with a happy married couple made me happy.


bad news.
pretty much everyone at work (and any random who finds out i'm engaged) feels the need to tell me how terrible marriage is. it's kiiiind of a huge bummer. i'm going to have an awesome marriage just out of spite.


bad news.
i've typed 'news' so many times it has stopped looking like a word.

confession.

i had a lot of alone time this weekend. brian had band practice and other plans for both saturday and sunday afternoons. two of my roommates were in california. and my third and newest roommate worked what seems like a bajillion hours. (her cat, however, did take up residence under my bed for the duration of the weekend)

so it was just me and oskar. and he mostly ditched me to sleep in the saucer chair or chase eat bugs.

so what did i do with all this free time? i scrubbed the kitchen counters. folded some week old laundry. finished my book. organized my fridge shelf and my bathroom shelf. (it will be so strange when an entire fridge is mine to organize, not just half a shelf.)

i also got pretty excited to watch whatever i wanted on tv.

this is actually a bad thing. because then i watch four consecutive episodes of four weddings. (these have given me exactly zero pointers on throwing my own wedding. except that people will really complain if they get attacked by ants during the ceremony)

or i watch dear john, because it was on tv, and i've never seen it, and there wasn't anything else on, and it was too hot to go outside, and hey, channing tatum was cool for a while.

or i start watching bunheads because gilmore girls is my heart song and i've missed amy sherman palladino, and i enjoy being ridiculed.

what i'm saying is, someone needs to monitor my free time more closely. oskar is doing a terrible job. (he watched all of dear john with me)

.

kind of all i want to be doing right now.

Things I Have Said To Inanimate Objects That Brian Thought (or hoped) Were Directed At Him

• "focus on what you're supposed to, i can't tap you right now!"

• "yep, i want you."

• "stop configuring! i just want to use you."

• "how did you get so dirty?"

• "oooh, i might want some of you later..."

friends and fiances! and a run-a-bunch!*

a couple of weekends ago, brian and i were lucky enough to be invited to bear lake to watch ray (ashley's betrothed) run a half-marathon. let it be known that was the ONLY reason we went. the shakes and beach were just a bonus.

we mega enjoyed ourselves. not only did we get to have an extended double date with one of our favorite couples, but we got to visit logan on the way (and carb-load at le nonne. you know...for support) and we got a pretty good outline of our first musical production. (berries and bagels and schmmmmmear...that's just a taste)

 

also we got to watch these guys try to hit their rocks together.

(that sounds...vaguely inappropriate. i'm leaving it)

they got pretty close, but luckily ashley made them stop before they threw their arms out. and before we got too bored.

pretty excited to come back when we don't have to wear hoodies. happy summering!

*the post title is the tentative name for our first musical endeavor.