Panic Mode!

I just did some math - slash - looked at a calendar. I am going to be in Minnesota in exactly TWO WEEKS. What. the. heck?!

I thought I had three weeks to get 5 weeks of homework done but I have two weeks...so that's super awesome.

So what do I do? I watch funny old SNL videos because I'm really good at priorities. NOT.

Seriously gotta get stuff ordered and ready for the reception, get homework done, and sleep a little bit. I should prolly figure out my camera and outfit too since I'm the photographer and bridesmaid....I should figure out this whole cloning machine thing ASAP.

Finished

I forgot to post a completed picture of the closet I built for myself. Phew good thing I remembered! ;)

I'm still trying to figure out that little space on the bottom left- I have some ideas though.

BEFORE

Don't Care to Admit

A few days ago we had a 2nd year girls camp gathering with all the YW we will be helping with this year. One of the girls asked us what our deepest secret was. Nobody really answered that but I admitted something that is kind of embarrassing. So I've compiled a list of other facts that I don't care to admit about myself, but here I am doing it anyway.

1. I don't turn the radio station when Elton John comes on. I secretly enjoy his songs
2. Some days I don't change out of yoga pants until noon (or cough* 2 *cough)
3. Sometimes I leave an item that needs to be put away where it is even though I'm walking right by where it goes- I promise this isn't voluntary most of the time
4. I'm most likely singing a song in my head when I'm bored listening to someone talk
5. I make myself laugh out loud when I think certain things and that is really awkward when I'm sitting in the middle of a class or meeting
6. I sang a song about spelunking in my brain throughout one of my classes a few weeks ago

7. You should probably just watch this now. For some reason the lyrics are all backwards but you'll know when he starts singing about spelunking. I'm a spe-lunk-ER and I am in a cave....
8. I get scared super easy and want to throat punch someone when they scare me on purpose
9. I thought there was a tarantula in my bed at work two nights ago, I was up faster than a very wiley coyote--PS there wasn't
10. Pretty Little Liars.
11. I could eat sweet potato waffle fries until I had to be airlifted out of my house
12. Sometimes I sing that Miley Cyrus song about USA SUPER loud
13. I could solve the national debt if I could stop going to amazon.com (slight exaggeration)
14. There are some weeks where I literally get four packages + a week - super embarrassing (but not all of them are for me!)
15. You know those totally artificial Captain Crunch ice cream bars- the pink ones?- Well I love them

Teal.

I have a prize for the person who tells me how many shades of teal there are in the world. Ready? GO!


.
.
.
.
.
.

Almost broke my legs wearing these things.

The answer is infinity. I get a prize! My prize will be four teal shirts. That's three more than I need but they are all different shades so I gotta keep them all until further notice.


With my lack of time lately I haven't had a good time to look for an outfit for my brothers wedding. At first I was supposed to wear a teal dress. I spent 4 hours at the mall on a Saturday looking in every. single. store. for a teal dress. No luck.
A few days later Jessica (Ty's fiancee) said teal dresses were too difficult to find so now we're wearing gray pencil skirts, teal tops, and teal shoes.
Ok, this should be MUCH easier.

Well much to my chagrin, as soon as I was on the hunt for teal shirts, teal dresses started popping up, of course! haha. I bought four shirts online that looked about right, I kept one of them and returned the rest because they weren't right.

This morning my mom asked if I wanted to go down south to some bigger shops to see if we have more luck. So off we went to Lynwood. Shopping exhausts me more than anything. I dunno what it is but I just wanted to curl up and lay underneath the clothes racks like I used to do when I was a kid.

ANYWHOO we went to Nordstrom Rack first. Found a couple promising things but the dressing room line was wrapping around the store, no thanks. Then we went to DSW to look at shoes. I've bought from them online before, they have good deals.

The above shoes were from that store. You can't see it but my knees are bent and arms are outstretched to balance myself. If something has a heel taller than my pinky finger I will do harm to myself.
No shoe luck for me here.

Luckily we had a pit stop. I invented a new Commandment today (prolly shouldn't make it a habit). It is, Thou Shalt not travel within 15 miles of a Chipotle and not stop to eat there.
Really, that's a new rule.
It was a nice break from shopping.

For some reason blogger won't let me upload the pictures I had of what I bought so that's lame. But just imagine four shirts all within the teal family (all different shades though), and two gray skirts.

That was nice wasn't it?

By the time we got to the last store, Macy's, I was so done trying things on so I just grabbed my sizes in a few things figuring I can just return them here if I don't like them. I really liked the two things I got from there, although I spent more on those two items of clothing than I should have.
I tried them on when I got home and realized that the skirt was too big. Like spin around, pull off big. But it was 'my size' so whatever. Gotta see if our Macy's has the same skirt in a smaller size (yay for smaller sizes though!).

I'm in a clothing limbo. A lot of my clothes are just too big and clothes that I've purchased lately are starting to get too big which I shouldn't complain about but.....I just bought them! I safety pinned a skirt I got 2 weeks ago to keep it from falling off this week. Embarrassing.

Whatever, I'm exhausted and rambling. I just barely submitted my assignment which is due in 20 minutes and now I am going to sleep. My eyes are burning from tiredness.
sohaveagooddaybye.
 

This site is so awesome if you like fireside talks. 
I don't want to be rich necessarily but I would love to be able to buy all of the books they have with these talks in them without feeling guilty.

Anybody have and favorite quotes from General Conference talks (or magazines from the Apostles) relating to the following topics?
Agency, Atonement, family, forgiveness & mercy, happiness, marriage, our potential, patriarchal blessings, plan of salvation, pornography, prayer, spiritual & physical preparedness. 



Send them on over if you do! (Or reference a favorite talk where you read the quote and I'll look it up)
The more the merrier!

I've been reading so many talks and Ensign articles lately and I really like it, it just takes a long time so no time to blog. Oh darn ;)

This is why.

New Blog

One of my assignments for this semester's Teachings of the Living Prophets class is to compile a bunch of quotes about different gospel topics. I've chosen to make a blog to track my quotes easier, plus I just have to send a link to my teacher to turn it in!

I was making it here on blogger but had all sorts of issues so I made it on wordpress and I gotta say, there are pros and cons to both blog sites but I'm really like wordpress. We'll see how this assignment goes, I may do some blog host switching soon.

If you'd like to visit my other blog you can! Here's a link.

I may end up making it private depending on how I feel about it but if you want to be able to see it, I can add you to a list.

So I had 4 topics assigned to me, then my class came up with 5 of our own topic ideas then I came up with one for my own. So each of those topics needs a minimum of 10 quotes from our Living prophets/apostles. I'm actually really excited for this project! I have an extra topic or two and I've add pages for each topic. I also added 'sub-pages' for them to post other types of media relating to the topic.
I haven't had a chance to really start adding quotes yet but hopefully I'll get to have time this week.

So blogging is fun but I don't have enough time really. Oh well, I never really post about anything exciting anyways, wah wah.

If you have any favorite talks/quotes about any of my topics you should tell me!

One Week

15 hours math
15 hours Teachings of the Living Prophets
34 hours work job #1
36 hours work job #2
4 hours BOM institute
3 hours in-class
2 hours mutual (+ whatever prep time)
3+ hours lesson planning
8+ hours of miscellaneous tasks
42 hours of sleep


That leave 6-ish hours to spend as I please. I've found if I reduce the amount of sleep hours I get more 'free-time' hours....but I love sleep.

^^My blog title inspiration comes from one of my favorite songs ^^

Stubborn

stub·born  

/ˈstəbərn/

Adjective

1. Having or showing dogged determination not to change one's attitude or position on something, esp. in spite of good arguments or reasons...
2. Difficult to move, remove, or cure.

That's what I am. I freely admit it. When I get an idea in my mind, it is the best idea and I don't rest until it is done....or something like that.... :D

Well last Wednesday I was madly organizing my room, trying to get it cleaned up before Ty and his fiancee Jessica came up to visit. When I realized that my closet is awful. It's tiny and crammed with junk/clothes/shoes/everythingthatdoesnthaveahome. So I grabbed my handy dandy yellow notepad (love those mini ones!) and started drawing out what my new closet would look like. I measured and re-measured and drew out the plans. It was going to be awesome!
(after this chicken scratch I made it official by typing it all up and even breaking down how much all the wood would cost, I was $4 off!)

I obviously didn't get it done that day, I didn't even buy the materials that day. Ty and Jessica arrived reallllly late Wednesday night/Thursday morning. They just left Sunday afternoon but it was really fun to have them here and we got to meet Jessica which was cool. So we did lots of family stuff those days, no time to work on my new closet. Which is fine.

Saturday I did have a little bit of time so I cut all of my boards to size.

 First I measured and marked each board so I would know the exact pieces that board would make. That was very handy.
Cutting all the boards didn't take a whole lot of time, maybe about two hours (that includes digging for the correct tools-the tool section of the garage is next on my list).

A couple days later (today) I had a few hours between work and going back to work. The above is a ^^photo of my closet BEFORE ^^

Yaaaa....can you see why I need some help? Ridiculous.

There are 35 pack boxes of those thin velvet hangers at costco right now, seriously the best things I have bought in a long time! My mom bought me a box, then I went back and bought 2 more ($10 each!). So what I have a lot of clothes! I do have one whole box leftover for future use though.

These things are awesome clothes don't slip from them and they take up half the size of a regular hangers. Serious space saver.

   I have this $4 ikea clothes rack that I used to house all of my hanging clothes until the closet it finished. My room is literally an obstacle course right now.

Today I managed to get my 'shoe rack' done! Hurray. I cut little dividers for each of those shelves to split them in half, but I actually like it better without them, plus i have more room. Which I obviously need because I still have several pairs of shoes that don't fit.... (donation time!)

everyone scoffed at me and told me to get a pre-packaged closet kit. Glad I saved myself hundreds of dollars and proved them wrong!

 Tomorrow perhaps if I have some time I will finish up. The only parts I have left to do are cut 3 hanger rods and screw in 2-3 more shelves on the sides. To the left of the shoes will be a skinny rod to hang my long dresses. There will be a short shelf below those dresses for additional storage (remember we don't waste space). 

To the right of the shoes at the top will be another hanging rod for all my 'tops', sweaters, shirts, etc....Below that I am going to put another shelf and rod for all my skirts. That way, each type of clothing is sectioned out and much easier to sift through. The side shelves will be gone through and cleaned out, they are a mess right now.

Hopefully it will all be done soon so I can have my room back! 

My fingernail polish organization corner now! :) I obviously love the stuff.

Maybe this should be a 2nd post but I'm including it here....

We also worked hard and fast to get our craft room done. It was a disaster but between the garage, the laundry room, re-doing food storage, organizing closets, painting, etc....it got done finally.

 Walking in to the room this is what you see (Nicole, do you notice no more pink/white wall?:))

 The back 'kitchen' corner

 This is a craft cutting table I made for my mom for her birthday (2 months later....). I bought two of those expedite 4 cube bookcases for the base. Then got REALLLLY lucky at the re-store and found this heavy duty solid table top for $10. It was ugly and brown but I painted it and it works perfectly! There is a rounded spot at one end for all of the cutting supplies and the table fits our huge cutting mat exactly....literally exactly.

 The other side of the room has more of those expedite bookcases and desks for my mom and I to work at. Lots of storage.

 And looking towards the back.
It's nice to have it all organized and put away. Let's hope it lasts longer than a week :)

Truffles

This is the story of how much I now love dates. You know those yucky looking pruney things?
We know this family who makes some of the best/healthiest food. It's the best because you don't KNOW it's healthy! They've shared various recipes over the years but this is my very favorite!

They are truffles.
But they're not.
They have coconut.
They have chocolate.
They have pecans (or walnuts).
They have vanilla.
They have pitted dates.
That's it.

Seriously if I had tasted one and not known what was in it, I NEVER would have guessed there was no sugar added or that it's main ingredient was dates.

This picture sure makes it look appetizing right?! ;)

1/2 cup of pitted dates
1/4 cup nut of choice (I had pecans)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 T unsweetened cocoa powder
Blend all of that up in a food processor until smooth
Roll into small balls and roll in unsweetened coconut

I cut too many dates so I doubled the recipe except I used just 1.5 T cocoa powder, everything else was doubled.

Seriously just try them. I want one now!

Thanks Billy and Jamie for sharing your talent of making yucky food delicious!

(BTW I did some math and figured out that with my doubled recipe each truffle has 90 calories. My recipe made 15 total)

Going UP

(Random fact, I've never seen UP! the movie...I have it, I should watch it.)

I took last week off for 'spring break' then said just kidding it's not really my spring break (mine's NEXT week) but I took it off anyway. My mom also had the week off and Sam went to Utah for the entire week. Heckkkk yes.
Well it wasn't a break. Each day we devoured another room leaving a wake of destruction as we went.
Seriously I now know where I get my crazy jump from project to project and start in the middle of things and go overboard with ideas/biting off more than I could chew. My Mother.

We shopped for supplies Monday morning and got started when we got home. This is what we did.
1. Re-painted 2 walls in my parents room
2. Started making two mirror frames -one for practice- and a 'picture frame'
3. Spent WAY too much time distressing/staining/gluing/figuring out said frames
4. Cleared out under my parents bed whoa!
5. Started cleaning out the garage in the middle of the 'crazy living room filled with junk from under the bed' project
6. Bounced between those three things for awhile
7. Cleaned/organized kitchen drawers
8. I decided I didn't like the hall closets and their lack of function so I spent about an hour figuring out new ideas for both the small hall closets
9. I started thinking about organizing the tool/work section of the garage
10. Re-did hall closets
11. Finished frames
12. Made new 72 hr kits and lists of emergency stuff

phew! It was a loooong week but it wasn't bad. I ruined four pairs of yoga pants, two sweatshirts, and a pair of socks or two. wah wah.

The entire point of this was to show you the closets!
Did I ever mention I love power tools? They love me too because I still have all of my limbs!

So my mom emptied this closet before I could take a 'before picture' lame. It was a hot mess. Stuff falling out EVERYWHERE shoved into each nook and cranny. For an idea of what it was like imagine all of this:

 In that one closet....yiiikes. This was my Friday activity. Organizing this stuff, building the new shelves, and putting everything in it's new place.

not everything is folded nicely yet just seeing where things are going to go.

This is afterwards. I hate wasted space and with a lack of storage it's important to think "UP!" 

There are lots of things you can do vertically do make storage.

What?! Just ignore me. I re-do two closets and I think I'm Ty Pennington.

 

Here are some of the tubs I bought to organize. We found a fishing tackle box for like $6 and organized all of our medical stuff in it. I wanted a toolbox but we couldn't find a good one.

I labeled the top of the box to indicate what is in each slot of the First Aid box. If anyone needs moleskin between now and the apocalypse come on over.

The other good part of this closet is the over the door organizer. My mom found it at Costco and it seriously cleared out an entire kitchen cupboard and under a bathroom sink. So much storage. It's so vertical!

This is a before pic of the 2nd hall closet.

 Really I don't make this up. Everything gets piled on.

 A couple more befores

 From this photo can you guess what I'm thinking? If you guessed, go "UP!" you're the winner! All of that wasted space makes my neck itch. I think a guy must have put this up....(my dad meant well!)

After making more shelves and some unscrewing and re-arranging This is what happened:

 Coat racks up. Top shelf longer to fit all of the sleeping bags that were lodged in the top of the other closet before.

 This is where the cleaning stuff going so they each have their spot that goes "UP!"

 Put in the new shelf and wrapped it in damask contact paper. Just because. When I placed this shelf I measured the coats and screwed the shelf in right below the coats.

 That shelf created a handy spot for the little cart of cleaning rags/supplies. There are also three boxes. One of them is full of plastic bags, one is for aprons (Nicole do you have some of my aprons from the FR?) and the other has misc. winter items that were buried.

 The 'before' picture of this closet had that white cart in it. You just can't see it because it was buried under coats.

And it's done! There are the same number of coats in here are there were before. See how cool it is to go "UP!" (why do I keep doing that? It's dumb and I'm annoying myself).

You gotta do what you gotta do:

Conveniently/coincidentally everyone was gone Friday night so all of my limbs help build these projects :) There was some serious 'stud action' going on. I couldn't get the screws to go through the wall and some of them started smoking. So I had to readjust the shelf height but it finally worked!





Thinking vertically will give you A LOT more storage.

Tonight was spent trying to finish up the craft room. Pictures of that later ughh! Decided to paint it last minute so I did that tonight then made a craft table. OK I'm done I'll talk about that later. 

OH one more- pictures of my HUGE completed mirror frame. FINALLY DONE!

 Close up. If you want to have some fun, distress a piece of wood. Really awesome to purposefully ding something up.

 Before and After picture. From ugly gold sliding mirror closet door to whatever it is now. haha. Big.