Paperback Writer

Purses

2012-01-10T19:27:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone, and it comes with a new semester! I've got a pretty busy schedule this semester with Accounting 200, Econ 110 (with the most dreaded difficult professor ever probably), and my first semester working! It's all going pretty well so far, but since blogging is no longer homework for me (darn!) I can't make any promises :)

Christmas break was so wonderful but far too short! It is always the best to have our whole family together because we have so much fun watching tv shows and playing games!

One of my new Christmas presents was a real purse! This is the purse that I've been using ever since high school:

I made it myself in Young Women out of a place mat! I love telling people that because it definitely doesn't look like a place mat! I have really loved this purse and it has served me well for a fair amount of years. However, now that I'm in college and an adult with a job and such things, I decided to get a real purse! I've been looking for a while but it wasn't until I went home that I found one I loved!

My new purple purse! It has a big bow.

It's really big and I love it. Even though most of the time I don't fill it very full, it's nice to have the option of lots of space. Also it has pockets on the inside which super exciting for me! :) Hooray for new things!

End of the Semester

2011-12-07T21:19:00.001-08:00

It's the end of the semester! This is my last blog post for actual homework, which means I can't guarantee that I'll be awesome at blogging next semester like I was this semester. Hopefully it will still carry over occasionally. I can't think of any one topic to blog about right now so you get lots of random things!

I saw The Muppets over Thanksgiving and I loved it! I was looking forward to this movie so much, and it did not disappoint! The soundtrack was on sale the week before the movie and I jsut couldn't resist buying it! (Don't worry - I used a gift card). The music is so fun (this song), funny (A Muppet version of Nirvana's Smell's Like Teen Spirit) and classic (Rainbow Connection!) that I listen to it all the time! The movie has tons of great cameos and I think it's great for parents and kids. So you should all go see it!
Some exciting news: I have a job! Next semester I'll be working at Jamba Juice on campus. I start training next week and I'm excited to start! Soon I'll know all the secret inner workings of Jamba, and also I get a great discount which doesn't hurt either. :)
I am so infinitely excited to go home for Christmas! I didn't mind too much having to stay here for Thanksgiving because my parents made it down (up?) here. However, I am definitely ready to get out of Provo and see my friends and go swimming and go to Target and have for real meals that don't come from a box (even though I've been great at cooking this semester).
Look at these adorable kids!

Photo by Lauren Trout

It has only snowed once here and Provo and that is definitely not enough for Christmas time. Provo is lame.
Did I mention I'm ready to go home? I can't think about anything else!!!

Happy Christmas everyone!

Sharing cookies

2011-12-04T19:03:00.001-08:00

For my MCOM class this weekend our teacher gave us the assignment to find someone more stressed than us and do something nice for them. I wanted to really go all out for this assignment (since last time I kind of stretched actually doing it) but I wasn't really sure how, especially since he assigned it at the time that I was feeling the most stressed. Finding someone that was more stressed than me didn't seem that likely at the time. :) Of course there is always someone who needs some more help! I decided I wanted to take cookies to someone (who doesn't want cookies?). One apartment in our ward popped into my head and tonight I secretly ding-dong ditched cookies for them! It was fun, and definitely a great way to get myself into the holiday spirit, right after the Christmas devotional!

New hair

2011-11-25T17:47:00.001-08:00

Last Friday was the Friday before Thanksgiving. We'd all finished school for the week (some of us had finished all school before break), taken tests, and Lauren had performed fabulously at a piano recital! We decided so spend all night celebrating. After making some muffins, we decided to hit the town! We arrived at Yogurtland just as it had started to snow! While eating ice cream we listened to our favorite version of "White Christmas" (the Disneyland version of course). Then it was off to Walgreens for hair dye! This time I got a color called "Cinnaberry" and just semi-permanent again! I love dying my hair and I'm already sad when it started to fade so someday I'll have to go permanent!
So disclaimer: my hair is not quite as red as it looks in these pictures. You can definitely tell it's red, but it's not like I dipped my hair in a melted crayon or something. It's still brown. It's kind of like a burgundy color.

Lauren and Brynn survey the washing out process to make sure all is going good.

This is my beautiful roommate Kanani who is pro at hair dying.

This is me just hanging out and washing my hair!

Ta da! Excuse my cheesy/racoon eyes face.

Another reason I love dyeing my hair is because afterwords it's always super soft!

I'm always sad because as soon as I wash my hair I feel like it's fading. Someday I'll have to go permanent, but for right now I'm enjoying the cheaper semi-permanent and trying lots of colors! I like to dye my hair at school, but sometime when I know I'll see my parents soon to surprise them! My mom likes it, but not too much because she keeps telling me it's too dark to do permanently. :) My roommates had fun putting purple streaks in their hair, which turned out way cool. As always, dyeing hair never ceases to be a great source of entertainment!

A Preview

2011-11-21T11:24:00.001-08:00

You know what this means....hair dye!!!! Full post later :)

Pinterest Projects

2011-11-15T16:58:00.001-08:00

My friend Kristy blogged about the things she's found on Pinterest and how they turned out. I thought it was a great idea that I'm going to steal! I've already blogged about some things I found from Pinterest (like my Butterbeer Cupcakes and chocolate cookies), but not any dinner recipes! Lauren and I have dinner once a week and we take turns cooking. Here's some recipes I've tried for our dinners lately.

Cauliflower Pizza Crust: Guys. Do yourself a favor and don't try this recipe unless you really love cauliflower. This was not one of my brighter ideas. I think part of the problem was that the oven was too hot so the bottom was burning before it was all the way cooked through. The edges were good because they were crispy. I was excited because it was a gluten-free recipe, but not really up to standards really.

Crispy Cheddar Chicken: This was a good recipe! It was pretty easy to put together and it turned out pretty good. And then I had leftover Ritz crackers that I inhaled in about two days!

Chicken Parmesan Bake: I think this might be my favorite recipe of all of them! Then again, I didn't have to make this it. :) Lauren and I found this recipe together and she was nice enough to make it for our dinner! Basically, you put your chicken, some marinara sauce, cheese and croutons together and bake! That's it! Easy, cheesy, Italian deliciousness? I'm so there. :) It took a little longer to bake than expected for us, but it probably just depends on the size of your chicken.

I already have some more recipes picked out for upcoming dinners and I can't wait to try them and share with you!

Jane Eyre

2011-11-11T15:14:00.001-08:00

Last year my roommate Molly really wanted to show me one of her favorite movies, Jane Eyre. Finally, one Sunday during winter finals she put it in. I gave in and said that I would watch it for a little bit while I studied for my final the next day.

Needless to say, I did not get much studying done.

I am in love with that movie. Since we were watching the 4 hour 2006 version, we had to put off finishing it until everyone could watch it together. I think it was about 3 days that I had to wait and I was going crazy!

My only knowledge of Jane Eyre up to this point was from The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. Without spoiling the ending (can you spoil the ending to a book that's been around for over 100 years?), I was surprised because the ending was different from The Eyre Affair. So from then on, Jane Eyre was pretty much my new favorite.

When my mom came to pick me up for the summer, she brought Jane Eyre from the library for me to read. Normally, I don't get super absorbed into classics. I read them mostly to say that I have, but they are so different from what I'm used to that I don't end up loving them. That being said, I loved Jane Eyre!

When I got home, I bought the 4 hour version (still having only seen it once) because I loved it so much. I started to worry that at 4 hours long, it wouldn't be as awesome as I had remembered. However, my friend Ginger and I watched it together in one setting and I declared it to be still as awesome as ever.

I've been dying to watch the most recent version for a long time.

I mean, just check out the trailer! Isn't that the most exciting thing you've ever seen?

So last night I finally got to watch it, and I loved it! I love both versions for different reasons, but I think the 2006 version will always have a special place in my heart since I saw it first. :) However, having 3 people watch the movie with me last night who don't know the story, I would recommend the book or the 4 hour movie first because I think it will make more sense.

Moral of the story: Go read, watch, buy, love Jane Eyre!

Also I want this. Why is it 122 dollars?!?!

A Good Life

2011-11-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

I am really happy today. Nothing super out of the ordinary has happened, just lots of little things that have made today and this week great.

Monday was Halloween! I dressed up as Darla and felt silly, but that was part of the fun. I had an event for school that I had to run at the Provo Beach Resort, which is now all done! Even though I ended up essentially doing squats for 3 hours and therefore I'm ridiculously sore, it's kind of fun to be sore because it means I did something. Also my nephew was Elmo and my niece was Jessie (from Toy Story) and they were adorable.
My mom is here and my dad comes on Friday! It's just nice to have my mom around. And she brings me things like free samples. :)
My mom is fixing my new skirt (the red and orange one) so that I can finally wear it!
She brought me index cards so I can put recipes in my new recipe box!

President Monson came and spoke at BYU yesterday and I got to go see him! I got to sit with a bunch of roommates and friends; it was wonderful! AND he quoted Lion King, which was perfect.
We tested waltz today in dance class and it was way fun. Waltz is by far my favorite; I'm totally in love with it and I want to waltz all the time now.
New music including this song and this song.
I was the only in my MCOM class that knew what the Oxford comma was, which is cool because everyone in that class is like married/graduating and I normally feel so...young haha.
Everyone that proofread the rough draft of my research paper (which I had taken to calling my vomit paper because I typed whatever I could) liked it and said it was interesting.
I put my hair in pigtails this afternoon and I really like it. I'm having a good hair day today.

Excuse the high quality photo booth picture :)

So pretty much: life is good. :)

Photoshoot

2011-10-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Lauren and I decided to go take pictures up the canyon! And when I say "Lauren and I", I mean Lauren took awesome pictures of me. :) The leaves were a gorgeous color and we had fun driving around trying to find somewhere good to stop. I'll admit I felt pretty silly the whole time; there are many reasons I am not a model haha. But we really had a great time just hanging out.

Even more exciting was getting home and seeing all the pictures Lauren got! They are amazing, obviously because she's super talented. Here's some of my favorites:

I love this one because it has such a great background! In the pictures before this one I just didn't know what to do, and Lauren kept telling me to just relax and do whatever! Obviously this picture was way better than the previous ones since I finally loosened up :)

Shoes! If only they were red :)

I'm so glad Lauren suggested bringing a book because these pictures are some of my very favorites! It's even better because the book is a Shannon Hale book - my favorite!

My favorite thing about this picture is that it came right after....

this one! :)

You know how I love jumping pictures!

Lauren even let met take a few pictures of her...

And as the sun was setting I think we got some of my other favorites:

I know this was a photo-heavy post but I just had to share Lauren's awesome work! I had a lot of fun and I hope it shows!

Cupcakes!

2011-10-23T23:23:00.000-07:00

In our apartment this year, we definitely love cupcakes! My roommate Kanani is a pro cupcake maker and makes super awesome ones!

Kanani made these cupcakes for the football game one day! We also had fresh sunflowers! Aren't we such cute roommates?

This is the wonderful poster in our kitchen: "Eat a Cupcake then Eat Another". We like to say that this is rule number one and rule number two, that end up creating an endless cycle :) I had lots of fun taking pictures of cupcakes with our cupcake poster.

This is our adorable table when we were getting ready for roommate dinner one night. We weren't quite finished setting the table but look at our awesome matching plates and placemats! We have roommate dinner about once a week, sometimes a little more or sometimes less depending on the week. We've had such wonderful foods at chicken and rice, pasta, pizza, funeral potates and even blue crepes (on homecoming weekend)!

This is our poster and our quote or tally posters. We have one for each roommate (and one for our fish Ralph which is not pictured here) where we can put funny quotes we've said, or tally how many times certain subjects are mentioned!

Kanani's birthday was about a week after mine, she threw a wonderful cupcake party and invited lots of friends and the ward! She made tons of colorful cupcakes that were delicious! It was even more fun because we all got to decorate our cupcakes in such fancy colors!

See what fancy cupcakes they were? So if you're ever in need of cupcakes there's good chance you'll find some in our apartment! :)

Vegas and Buying Someone a Coke

2011-10-15T23:56:00.000-07:00

Contrary to how this title may sound, it's not that crazy of a story! Just a normal day in the life of Rachel :)

In my business writing class this week, we were assigned to "buy someone a coke", meaning, buy someone random a treat, pay for the person behind you in line, etc. This has been difficult to complete, seeing as I'm in Las Vegas right now! So for the purposes of this assignment I bought my cousin a tankful of gas! I know that's kind of a cop-out answer, but we didn't get out very much on this trip!

That may not make sense at first, but the night of our arrival, 3 of my cousin's family got hit with a nasty case of food poisoning - or at least that's what we think the culprit was! So Friday was very much a recovery for everyone. I loved having a day to just relax. It was pretty serious relaxation too. :) Today (Saturday) everyone's been feeling much better and we've been a little more out and about. Lauren and I went to take pictures of my cousin Kaleen in her beautiful homecoming dress! I had so much fun being assistant photographer aka: fixing Kaleen's dress, making her laugh, and being able to do whatever silly things I wanted. Tonight was just more relaxation - reading, and watching tv shows.

We've had some delicious food while we've been here: turkey burgers and chicken salad sandwiches (with grapes of course), which I feel like I've been craving forever and could probably eat for the rest of my life.

We've had fun playing with my cousin's newest addition to the family: baby Jackson! The main reason for our visit was that Lauren had never met him before! He is an adorable baby and it's been so fun to play with him! However, he really makes me miss my own niece and nephew so I definitely think a visit is in order to them too!

So, it has been a super fun weekend and I'm not sure I'm ready to head back to Provo tomorrow!

Halloween!

2011-10-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

Happy October everyone! You know what that means — Halloween!

I think the older I get the more I enjoy Halloween. I love carving pumpkins, but since I've been in college and don't have all the tools pumpkin carving requires (i.e. knives and pumpkins) so I've had more fun with the next best thing: costumes!

In 2007 (I think?) I was Darla from Finding Nemo! This is one of my favorite costumes that I've done; It's something that I love, easy to make, and easily recognizable!

Freshman year of college I was the house from Up! This was a lot of work to make (for a college student with no supplies like paint or brushes) but it turned out pretty well. It also may not have been the best choice for a dance party (which was the only place I wore it).

Last year I was retro Minnie Mouse (this outfit instead of her regular red one). For making this the night before, it turned out pretty good! This is me and my old roommate Molly who was dressed as a witch/Liza Minnelli.

My cousin Lauren and her roommates dressed up as Mario Kart, and I can openly admit that I am still jealous of those costumes! They had so much fun "driving" around all night and trying to pop each others balloons. It was pretty cool!

Now it's Halloween '11 and I want your ideas! What should I dress up as? Cheap and easy ideas are always good, but I love dressing up as something very "me" (usually this means something Disney ;) ). If I had tons of time and money I would definitely dress up as a Weeping Angel from the BBC tv show Doctor Who! Maybe next year! Some ideas other ideas I'm thinking about are Mary Poppins or Anastasia! I'm not sure where I'll get to wear my costume since I have to work the Provo Beach Resort even for one of my classes, but I'll find somewhere to wear it!

Opinions! What should I be? What are you going to be for Halloween! Tell me! :)

Life in Regency Apartments!

2011-09-29T22:56:00.000-07:00

This semester I made an apartment change to Regency! I loved living in Campus Plaza, but it was time for a change; i.e. two girls to a bedroom instead of three and a nicer apartment in general. I even have my own desk! Here's some pictures of my room:

Perfume! I love matching things and I love that these go together. Current favorite is "Forever Summer" on the right which was a gift from Natalie and Kayla! It smells so good!

Thanks to various Disney gift cards, these key chains were my special treat from Disneyland this summer! They have magnetic noses and their eyes close when they kiss!!!! Over priced and Disney-cheesy? Yes. Am I absolutely and completely in love with them anyway? Does that even need to be asked?

I tried a fun new way of hanging pictures up this year! I've had the quotes (from Pushing Daisies- I have no regrets!) for a year or two now, but I decided to frame it with my pictures this year. I love how it turned out! I've printed out another quote and I'm working on doing the same thing on the other side of my wall as well.

These are my Mickey Monsters and my Vinylmations! For my birthday my brother gave me the last Mickey Monster in the collection! I love that I have the whole set, I think they're pretty cool! I also love my Vinylmations because they are small and nice to play with while I work on homework. :)

Here's my birthday nail polish from Elaine! I love them so so much. OPI is my favorite brand of nail polish (is it weird I have a favorite brand of nail polish?). The far left is a new top coat, which I desperately needed considering I'm using the same clear nail polish from elementary school (that I used to polish rocks I found). The pink is called "Steady as She Rose" and it's from the Pirates of the Caribbean collection! Perfect for me :) I'm wearing it right now and it's a great neutral with just enough pink! The grey on the right is called "French Quarter For Your Thoughts". I haven't tried it yet, but I'm so excited to because it look great!

So now you know what my bedroom looks like! Literally that's what it looks like right now since I took those last two pictures about 5 minutes ago. Sorry they're not very nice; I was too lazy to wait to take pictures in the sun tomorrow! :)

Enjoy General Conference this weekend!

Birthdays!

2011-09-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

This week seemed to last forever! I got hit with a pretty nasty cold on Tuesday, and I'm just barely feeling a lot better today. That isn't even that long to be sick, but since I rarely get sick, it's seemed like a very long time. I'm pretty sure something is going around BYU right now, because I know plenty of sick people.

But no more talk of boring things like sickness, let's talk about fun things like birthdays!!! Yes, I'm officially 21; old enough to drink (if I wanted do) and go on a mission (if I wanted to, and right now I don't!). My birthday was last Thursday, which is always fun because then it spills over into the weekend! My goal for Thursday was to not do any homework, which didn't actually happen but the day was still great! I took a nap and my cousin Lauren made me dinner (which we ate while watching the Castle marathon on tv :D ). Lauren made me a delicious cake and invited all my friends over to share! I was going to make my famous Dole Whip, but because of a lack of an ice cream maker, that's being postponed for another time! We talked and had a great time and thanks to Kayla's (my freshman roommate) suggestion we watched Northanger Abbey! I loved it, and it's probably my new favorite (after Jane Eyre though). Saturday my brother came to Provo and we celebrated both our birthdays with my sister + family by having pancakes and bacon for lunch and hiking to Timpangogos Caves! I loved the caves; they were super cool. I don't have any pictures of any of these things so you'll just have to used your imagination!

Just for fun I thought we'd go back and see what I was doing on my previous birthdays!

Last year I went to lunch with my sister, and had cake with friends at night! I invited the ward to come have cake too which was mostly just a bad idea because no one came except for the creepy boy who wasn't even in the ward who came mostly just to hit on my roommate! We have a good laugh about that now. I also ended up watching a scary movie with my new roommate Molly, and ended up having a great time. We always remember the day we became friends as my birthday!

2009 was my first birthday away from home but it was still great! My floor plus Alyssa decorated my door and brought me cupcakes! My sister took me to get my very first pedicure, which was so fun, followed by dinner at Legends, my treat! (Dining plus of course). Also, the prophet came to BYU for devotional that day so hearing him speak was also a great birthday present! :)

2008 (was it really so long ago?) brought a super special trip to Disneyland with my cool adult friends Kim and Lisa! And of course, no Disneyland trip is complete without Alyssa! We had great adventures including tiny Lauren and Emily, cupcakes from Lisa, and my first ice cream cone from Main Street from Alyssa!

I'm so glad I've had great friends through my whole life to help me have fabulous birthdays! Thanks to everyone who's made a birthday special! I hope yours are just as great.

Pottermore!

2011-09-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

So the most exciting thing that has happened this week was getting my Pottermore email!

Now don't worry, I know you moms and people with jobs out there don't have as much time to spend on the internet as I do, so I'll give you the rundown. Pottermore is J.K. Rowling's latest project related to the Harry Potter world. It's a website filled with all of her extra writings and background information about the world of Harry Potter. So in that way it's kind of like a Harry Potter encyclopedia. But here's the fun part, it's also interactive! All this information is obtained by going through the books. That's right, book by book, chapter by chapter you arrive in each scene to look around, pick things up, unlock secret material and even live it out some! In case that didn't excite you enough, here's a video of J.K.R. describing it.

"Well, that's cool and all," you're thinking, "but why is it so exciting that you got some email?" Pottermore isn't officially open until October! Back in August they did a week of early registration at random times, which I signed up for, and now I've finally been let in for Beta testing! Fun things I've done so far: gone shopping for Hogwarts supplies (I bought an owl!), got my wand and gotten sorted!!!
Here's a picture of my wand:

Cool huh? :)

The other super fun thing was getting sorted. This isn't some random sorting quiz from the corners of the internet; this is the real deal created by J.K. Rowling. Since it is kind of a big deal I ended up having my cousin and my roommates watch me be sorted. It was a little nerve wracking, but so much have to have it be a big event. And are you ready for the result?

Drumroll....................I'M IN HUFFLEPUFF!

Now I'm sure you're wondering what my reaction was to that, and I was pretty stunned at first. I'll be honest, I was a little disappointed. I knew, like I'm sure you do, that Hufflepuff is not exactly a prevalent house in the books. And really, with all the main characters being in Gryffindor, who doesn't want to be there? However, as soon as you're sorted you get to go to your common room and read a letter from your prefect. This letter revealed some new cool things that I didn't realize about Hufflepuff like "Hufflepuffs are trustworthy and loyal. We don’t shoot our mouths off, but cross us at your peril; like our emblem, the badger, we will protect ourselves, our friends and our families against all-comers. Nobody intimidates us."

So, after a period of adjustment, I am officially part of the Hufflepuff house and very proud of it! :) Anyway, you've heard enough of my geeking out. Just giving you guys something to be excited for in October!

Thoughts on Pinterest

2011-09-07T17:23:00.000-07:00

Can I just say I love that blogging is now actually homework? Look at me, I'm being productive! I can't think of any awesome pictures or stories I want to share right now, but I've been thinking about my opinions on Pinterest lately. I guess it's my blog so I can talk about whatever I want, right? :)

I should preface this by saying that I think Pinterest is a great idea, with a great design and I've found lots of great ideas, tutorials, projects and recipes there. However, I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Pinterest.

Issue 1: Lack of Sources.
I can't stand finding things on Pinterest that don't link back to the original creator. I just hate seeing photographs/graphics/recipes/whatever that are wonderful but I can't find who made them! They definitely deserve credit. So often I find something that I want more details about how to make or where to buy something, only to find the source as pinterest, or page 3 of such and such blog/tumblr that was posted forever ago. When you pin things, please link to the actual post so that I can find it again!

Issue 2: Serious Body/Health Issues disguised as "motivational".
Again, I know that this isn't always the case but it shows up enough to bother me. Yes, being healthy and eating right and exercising are good things. But I feel like that's not the motivation behind so many of these pins! Things like "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" really irk me. Yes, it's okay to want to lose weight, but I dislike the word "skinny". The world so stuck on this unrealistic idea of beauty that is perpetuated by the media. We're all affected by it, even if we don't realize it. So, let's just appreciate our bodies a little more, be happy with what we have and find a more positive way to motivate ourselves.

Issue 3: Spending a million years pinning everything, and doing none of it.
It's great that you can find so many cool ideas about everything on pinterest. But I'm surprised at how much people can pin one thing! I just have to laugh when I find a "My Dream Home" pinboard that's forever long filled with so many pins! That's great that you have so many ideas for when you win the lottery, but maybe if you spent a little less time pinning and a little more time creating a home you love, you wouldn't have to wait for the lottery!

Anyway, these are just my opinions and so no one should take me seriously enough to be offended. I'm just going to surf Pinterest to find some cool things now. :)

School and Summer Projects!

2011-09-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

Hello from the land of BYU! I'm so happy to be back and have exciting things to blog about! ;) I'm super excited for my classes this semester! I'm taking:

Math 110
Program Management
Social Dance
Business Writing
Careers in Recreation
New Testament (2nd half)

I'm taking Social Dance with my cousin Lauren and I am already having a ton of fun with it. Our teacher is hilarious and thankfully we switch partners every couple minutes so you never get stuck with someone for very long! My Careers in Recreation class is awesome because we get to take a 2 day field trip next week! We get to visit places all over Utah Valley, stay overnight at Aspen Grove (and watch a movie there that my group gets to pick...Disney anyone?) and eat out at restaurants, hooray! And I'm even excited for my Business Writing class because I have to blog for it! Yes, that's right, I'm doing homework right now. Aren't you jealous? :) I have to blog at least once a week so you all have something to look forward to this semester!

And now I want to share some projects I worked on this summer that I am so proud of! My mom and I decided to make me some skirts this summer since I've had such a hard time finding skirts that are cute and not mini skirts! Really, most of the credit on these goes to my mom, she worked SO hard to help make these right and I would not have been able to do it without her! Even my grandma pitched in and helped us pick fabric and lent us her sewing machine since my sister had my mom's!

The first skirt we made, I just found a tutorial online that I thought look cute! It's this one here. It was so easy! It took us about a day to make this, plus hemming time! Here's the finished product:

I'm so happy with the way it turned out! It's casual enough that I don't mind wearing it in the middle of the week, which is so fun for me! Of course, it has pockets too, which is starting to be pretty important to me in all skirts and dresses.

The second skirt was inspired by this Shabby Apple dress here. I wasn't willing to pay 80 dollars for a dress, so my mom and I decided we'd recreate it! You would be surprised at how hard it was to find navy striped fabric though, so we went with a tiny polka dot instead! I haven't found a green top I like to go with it yet (still looking!) but here's this skirt:

I am in love with this skirt! I am so so happy with the way it turned out. I love the fitted waistband, the pleats, and the pockets of course! I love love love my mom for working so hard to figure out how to sew an invisible zipper in, while I was off doing something more fun than sewing zippers! You can probably tell that I'm pretty ecstatic about how these skirts turned out! I can't wait to go home and make some more, with my mom's help of course. :)

Baking Adventures

2011-08-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

So a couple of weeks ago while wandering Pinterest I found a recipe for Flourless Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies! Since they were flourless I had to make them so I could share them with my mom, and since they don't require many ingredients (just lots of powdered sugar - yum!) it was an easy recipe to whip together! I loved them! They were chewy and very sweet and very chocolate-y. My picture doesn't do the cookies justice (in fact it makes them look kind of yucky!) , so check out the recipe here and make some yourself! :)

Six Flags

2011-08-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

I'm realizing my summer is quickly coming to an end I thought I should try and squeeze a couple more blog posts about random things I've been doing!

This summer I finally got to go to Six Flags for the first time! It was quite the experience since even though I love coasters, I really am only used to the ones at Disneyland or Disney World. Of course, the first ride we went on was probably the most intense one - X2! My friends kept asking me if I was scared, and I wasn't, but when I was finally on the ride I was definitely not prepared for how intense it was - in a good way :) My favorite ride was Tatsu, a flying coaster where you are lying down facing the ground- so much fun! Being me I'm sure you're all waiting for the Disneyland comparison and it's not surprise that Disney is still the clear winner. Six Flags is definitely for the teenagers and wins in the coaster category, but my goodness I was surprised at what a dump it was, if you'll excuse the extreme opinion. Poor Six Flags needs some more money so they can take better care of their park! Whatever the case, it was a super fun day!

Butterbeer Cupcakes

2011-07-18T09:47:00.000-07:00

Recipe: AmyBites
Photos: My friend Livia

The best way to celebrate any event is with food! So for the midnight premiere of Harry Potter I made these Butterbeer Cupcakes. I had a lot of fun making them, and they turned our pretty good! The combination of butterscotch and cream soda makes for a different flavor than I'm used to, but a nice break from chocolate or vanilla! My friends liked them, my brother definitely thought that 8 years olds would like them because they are too sweet for him!

I had a blast at the midnight showing, especially because our theater had a trivia contest, dueling, and each theater was a house (we were Gryffindor!) with a poster you could sign! What a fabulous way to end my Harry Potter adventures! :)

Hair dye!

2011-07-08T16:11:00.000-07:00

At the end of last semester I finally did something I've been wanting to for years - dye my hair!! I had my old roommate Kayla help me, which was a great idea because she totally knew what she was doing! It was so much fun and it turned out exactly how I had hoped (darker brown with a hint of red in the sun!) which is always a nice bonus. Sadly the dye is long gone now but I'm just biding my time til I feel like it's reasonable to spend money on something silly like hair dye!

Before:

After:

There's lots more pictures on Facebook of the whole process! And sorry most of you knew this already but everything exciting in my life I've already posted about on Facebook! Oh well, I'm slowly cutting back!

Tucker Meets the Characters

2011-06-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

If any of you guys read my sister's blog, you saw that they came down to California for two weeks! We had such a blast, and of course one of my favorite parts was getting to go to Disneyland with everyone! We did a character breakfast and it was so much fun to see Tucker meet the characters for the first time! The first video is Tucker waiting for the characters to get to him, he was so excited! The second one is Tucker with Chip! Sorry it's sideways, I forget you can't turn videos! :)

Random pictures

2011-06-06T16:49:00.000-07:00

Hello from summertime! I'm home for the summer in SoCal and I'm definitely enjoying all my free time. I have a lot of it right now, seeing as I don't have a job ;) I just thought I'd share some random pictures you guys haven't seen!

(Sept 15, 2010)

This was my birthday cake all way from last year! My sister was the super talented one who made the sprinkles in the shape of the 20! Can you believe I'll be 21 in just a few months?

(Sept 25, 2010)

My cousin Lauren and I took a roadtrip to Las Vegas and we had so much fun! Here we are riding in a limo for my very first time! I also got my haircut super short last fall, which is why it's so short in this picture, but I didn't really love it so thank heavens it's all grown out now!

(Oct 6, 2010)

On this day a friend texted me to say that the Cocoa Bean was giving away free cupcakes just around the corner from my apartment, and they were! There wasn't even a line or anything! So I was pleasantly surprised this day! I don't know what this cupcake was called, but it had some sort of bottom layer (Banana maybe?) and it had pink sparkles on it and it was free so I was definitely a fan!

A Special Concert

2011-04-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

Fear not all! I am not dead! :)
In the grand tradition of not studying for finals I'm here to update this blog with an awesome story from last night! It was Lauren's University Chorale concert and my Aunt and Uncle got tickets for me and Lauren's roommates. As we filed into our row, my uncle said to us "Did you see who's sitting behind us?" I turned around to look and saw President Uchtdorf sitting right behind us! We were so excited to see him! Diane snapped a sneaky picture of us with him!

He left after Lauren's choir performed so none of us talked to him, but we were all just so excited! That's the closest I've ever been to an Apostle. Lauren was lucky enough to talk to him! What a great way to get prepped for finals :) Now I'm really off to study!

Meet Natalie!

2010-11-07T00:31:00.000-07:00

In continuing my posts about the friends I hung out with last year, today we have Natalie! Natalie was Kayla's super great friend from high school, and just lived on the other side of our building so she was around or went to dinner with Kayla a lot! Natalie and I didn't become friends until after Kayla and I became good friends, so that's why I don't have enough pictures of us together! (This one is from my birthday this year!). It's so funny, now Natalie and I can think back to the time when I was "just Kayla's roommate" and she was just "Kayla's friend"!

Natalie is awesome! She is always super energetic and so fun to be around. She's done my makeup for me and has taught/is teaching me to do it because she's so legit, and I'm still working on that 'makeup' thing. ;) I'm super excited for the next adventures that will come with her!

Meet Katie!

2010-10-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

I haven't written about this school year at all, but there's just too much to talk about! So I'm going to introduce you to my friend Katie!

The very first time I met Katie I remember thinking "She seems really cool...I bet we could be friends!" It took us a while be we definitely are! Katie was my visiting teacher and she was the best. I always looked forward to when my visiting teachers would come.

Katie and I didn't become really close friends until January. Kayla and I decided to do a quick VMR (vending machine run) one night at about 11. This was the best decision ever! We met Katie in the stairwell on the way back and ended up talking for over an hour! So even though my microwave breakfast sandwich got cold, it was worth it for all the plans we made! Katie's in the flim program here and so we usually have great video memories of our favorite moments! So that's my friend Katie!

A Cute Video

2010-08-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

From when he visited this summer :)

Meet Kayla and The Elevator Adventure.

2010-08-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

(Kayla and The Elevator Chair)

This is my roommate Kayla! She's awesome. We had so much last year! We got along really well, and did some things together but we (or at least I feel like I) didn't realize what good friends we were until after Christmas break! Luckily we still had lots of time to be friends and do awesome friend things. This particular night (in September, I believe) began with Kayla and I both being bored (and frankly, pretty lame) in our dorm room. I think Kayla was watching a movie, and I was doing nothing so I decided to build a fort in our room. Poor Kayla, I can only imagine what she thought of her crazy roommate making a fort! After inviting her into my fort after it was completed and awesome, we decided that we wanted to take the chairs from the elevator room and put them in the elevator! So we did. :0) We could only fit one but we had an enjoyable time riding the elevator sitting down! We decided to leave the chair there for other to enjoy. Sometime later it disappeared and we were sad but eventually it was returned to our floor.

(Me in The Elevator Chair)

Time

2010-08-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

Here I am thinking that maybe I should write some posts about my adventures in college, when I only have about 10 days before I go back for my second year! I think there's some unstated natural law that says when you're getting close to going back to school, something has to happen to suck your time up so suddenly you only have a few days left! Last year I actually got sick (I don't get sick very often so when I do it's quite the event) and this year I had my wisdom teeth out! It wasn't that bad, I just didn't realize how long it takes to get better. Everyone kept telling me that they were miraculously better the next day (I'm looking at you Lisa!) and I was unfortunately not so lucky. But it wasn't that bad and I'm pretty much back to normal, I even recovered in time to make a Disneyland trip!

The rest of this summer I've just been chilling doing random things. I didn't have a "real" job, but I babysat/nannied pretty regularly the first half of the summer for a family in PV. The mom worked from home and so I've also been able to do some spreadsheet stuff from home for her. I didn't make a lot of money, but I made a fair amount, and it was all super flexible so I had plenty of time to do things with friends, family reunions and things like that.

Anyway, enjoy your last days of summer everyone!

Hello!

2010-07-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

Hello blog friends! I've debated posting stories from college, but I don't know how many of you actually would be interested in hearing, since I'm pretty sure some of you were there with me. Moms that don't have time for Facebook - are you interested? Let me know :0)

And it's summertime! Even in the very grey state of California! I'm currently missing some of my BYU classes. It's so much harder to study the Gospel in the summer, and I end up being spiritually stagnant. At school, you get to go to classes where if you show up and pay attention, they tell you awesome things about the Gospel!

So I've been trying to combat the "Summer Spiritual Stagnancy". I've been studying PGM, among other things. I had lots of fun listening to President Uchtdorf's talk "Your Happily Ever After" from the General Young Women Meeting, since I don't fall under that category anymore. :) I'd definitely recommend it!

I'm off to bed, have a great week!

California

2010-02-15T17:40:00.000-08:00

When I lived in California, I was definitely vocal about the things I didn't think about it. Traffic, crazy people, and terrible schools were just some of those things. Most people thought I hated California, which wasn't true! Coming to school in Utah was a great reminder of the things I love about California, especially when I get to tell people that's where I'm from. :0)

It's pretty cool to say I live about 15 minutes from the beach (even if it's not the best beach). The little park right next to the beach is also another favorite.
Disneyland! I definitely got to experience Disneyland in a way that very few people do. I don't think I would love it so much if I hadn't had a pass to enjoy it so often!
Movies! I once had someone ask me if I had seen any movies filmed, which at first I thought was a silly question, of course not, but then I realized I really had! Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed by the beach near my house, Where the Wild Things Are was filmed somewhere down there. I've been to the rock climbing gym, and arcade where they filmed The Princess Diaries. They filmed Beverly Hills 90210, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and She's All That at my high school!
The cool events that happen. I got to go to The Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End premiere, and see tons of celebrities. I went to an Academy Awards Animation Symposium and got to see Andrew Stanton (director of Wall-E) and other directors discuss their movies. The Pantages was nearby, so whatever's playing there is always around.

So, even if I whine about it a lot, there are lots of cool things about living in Southern California!

Monday

2010-02-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to check in! I thought I'd let you all know that it is currently 1:52 pm, I am still in my pajamas and I woke up from an hour nap after getting up at 10:30. I wish we could have days off of school every week!

That is all.

Reading

2010-02-01T23:10:00.001-08:00

When I posted my list of books I read last year, I realized how long it had been since I'd read something. I read a short book over Christmas break, and the last time before that was in September! So I decided it was time to start reading again! I set up a tiny LED lamp in the corner of my bed, and it's perfect for reading right as I go to sleep. Since I realized I've never read anything by C. S. Lewis (other than Chronicles of Narnia), I started reading The Screwtape Letters. I'm really enjoying it, plus it's just nice to read something other than a textbook!

New Schedule!

2010-01-26T19:57:00.000-08:00

I just realized that I never posted my classes for this semester, probably because I changed them so many times! I'm taking:

University Chorale (again, because it's awesome!)
Stats 221
World Civilization Since 1500 (which is an Art History class)
Bio 100
Book of Mormon
Marriage and Family

Stats is fine, because I took AP in high school so it's not extremely hard or anything. I really like my Art History class, it's so interesting! I don't think it will be the easiest class ever though, and I can't deny that sometimes I get sleepy when the lights are low! Biology....I'm just getting that done with. I love Book of Mormon! Haha..Marriage and Family! I know, I tried to change it (because, you know, I'm not married or even dating anyone!) but I didn't have any luck. But it turns out I am really enoying that class. We've gone over a lot of really cool doctrine. Plus I have that class with my cousin Lauren (along with Stats and Choir).

And I haven't mentioned yet that I don't have any classes until noon! I was originally planning on getting a job, but then I decided against that. I really hated it at first too, but I'm definitely settling into a schedule, so things are good. I'm loving this semester!

Books of 2009

2010-01-18T12:21:00.001-08:00

I've started keeping a list of the books I've read each year, here's this year's! The asterisks are books that I'm rereading!

Books Read in 2009

*Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder
East by Edith Pattou
*Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon Hale
Palace of Mirrors by Margaret Peterson Haddix
The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
Princess in the Spotlight by Meg Cabot
Princess in Love by Meg Cabot
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Princess and the Hound by Mette Ivie Harrison
Princess Ben by Catherine Murdock
A Posse of Princesses by Sherwood Smith
*The Host by Stephenie Meyer
*My Bonny Light Horseman by L. A. Meyer
Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George
*Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynn Jones
The Runaway Princess by Kate Coombs
Primavera by Mary Jane Beaufrand
The Safe Keeper’s Secret by Sharon Shin
Devilish by Maureen Johnson
The Truth-Teller’s Tale by Sharon Shin
The Dream-Maker’s Magic by Sharon Shin
*Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
*Austenland by Shannon Hale
So B. It by Sarah Weeks
The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry
The Actor and the Housewife by Shannon Hale
*Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon Hale
*Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
The Musician's Daughter by Susanne Dunlap
Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix

That's a total of 35 books, only 10 were ones I had already read. College definitely cut down on my reading, but I have so much less access to books! That sounds really silly, but I don't have my mom or friends recommending or lending books to me. Hopefully I will learn how to use the library this year, and I'll read a few more books!

New Year

2010-01-15T23:21:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I've neglected this blog so much! I lied in November when I said I would blog more, that obviously didn't happen! I can't even believe I only blogged 23 times in all of 2009, far less than any other year!

And I'd really like to say that it's one of my New Year's resolutions to blog more, or at least that I'll blog more, but I know that's not true. I'll certainly try to keep you all updated, but blogging just isn't the most important thing in life! Plus, I'm pretty sure everyone who reads this blog is friends with me on Facebook, so I'm sure you get the idea of what's going on in my life.

Anyway, while I'm babbling here I might as well keep going!

Last year I made some New Year's Resolutions (in February) which were:

1. Say morning prayers
2. Being kinder to my parents
3. Being productive!
4. Smile!!!
5. 52 Weeks of Self Portraits

I think this was the first year of taken any New Year's Resolutions seriously, and while it certainly fluctuated during the year, I know that it helped me a little at least. I'm still terrible at saying my morning prayers, and that's something I hope to work on this year too. I did better at being kinder to my parents, and then I moved away and it wasn't an issue until I came home. I hate to admit that there were a few times I was rather snarky with them! I feel like in general I've gotten a little better at being productive, doesn't mean that there isn't room for improvement though ;) I honestly don't think I really thought about smiling more often.

I'm most disappointed that I didn't actually finish my 52 weeks of self portraits. I got pretty close, around 40 weeks (I'm not exactly sure, I got behind posting them) but it just didn't quite stick. I'm proud of what I did though, and I think it helped my photography a little bit. I still have a long way to go though.

I'm pretty sure I had an unofficial goal to go on a date, but that didn't happen. So I'm lowering my sights and now my goal is to be friends with boys. :) We'll work on it. I have other goals but none are quite so specific yet, but I'm working on it.

I think that's enough rambling for tonight, I'll try and keep you all posted. Just know that life is good, and I'm happy. :0) 'Til next time!

Me, November 2009

Thanksgiving

2009-11-21T21:01:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, I'll be better. I have lots of exciting things to post too!
Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Birthday!

2009-09-23T18:01:00.000-07:00

For some reason going off to college, I didn't really think much about my birthday. I just felt for some weird reason no one would do anything about it but I had a fabulous day! The night before I slept horribly, you would have thought it was Christmas day the next morning or something! I woke up to me door all decorated by my floor!

I went to my Book of Mormon class and ended up getting out early because the Prophet was coming to speak at devotional! I wasn't planning on going to the Marriott Center because my class is fairly far away and I knew it would be crazy crowded. But since we got out early, I decided to head over there and I was so glad I did! I ended up sitting fairly close the the floor a little to the right behind President Monson. Devotional was awesome, he talked about all the presidents of the church that he knew and for each he said their favorite food, hynm and a way in which they lived their life. I loved sitting behind the teleprompter because then I could see when he went off the teleprompter and just started telling his own stories! You should definitely watch it online, it was very, very funny!

Another exciting thing about devotional was that I got to meet my Board reader friend/blogger/photographer extraordinair Chillygator! I knew she would be there, and I thought I had spotted her, when President Monson came she whipped out her big beautiful camera and I was sure it was her! After devotional was over I went down and talked to her, which was way fun, I felt like I was meeting a celebrity, ;) My first real life Board friend! Hopefully if she ever stops traveling the world for a weekend, we'll go on a photo adventure! ;) And Dough Rey Mi can come too, because I called her right after and she was jealous. :]

(taken with Chilly's beautiful Nikon D700)

I went back to my place for lunch, and back to my last class which also got out early! My sister Elaine surprised me with a pedicure which was so great, because I've never had one before! It was way fun, and I love showing off my pretty pink toenails! I don't have a picture of that because who really needs to see a picture of my feet? ;) We went and got Tucker and Sheldon and went to Legends for dinner! It was really good, and I was definitely full afterword. I got to open up presents and I got lots of awesome gifts!

My friend Andria visited me monday to give me a bag that is perfect for my sunday stuff and a blank notebook! Yay! My friend Liv gave me and iTunes gift for the first Rooney cd, which I've been wanting for a long time and yesterday in the mail she sent me a way cute Wilderness Explorers Scrapbook from UP! It's super cute, I can't wait to fill it up, and it came with a magnifying glass which I'm really excited to use sometime. :) My brother sent me an iTunes giftcard (still deciding what to use it for, Pushing Daisies soundtrack maybe?) and a super awesome bike camera mount that he made! My mom sent me a big package of some movies and stuff I'd been asking for. She aslo sent me some food, some cute Disney artwork and a new Shannon Hale book. I finished it in a few days, and I liked it! My mom on the other hand would definitely not like it, it is definitely very different from the other books she's written. I also got a cute package from my friend Ginger, with a ton of glowsticks and a burned cd that had music that we danced to at Disneyland, so that was way cute and nostalgic.

When I got back from Legends, I found my door even more decorated than before! Alyssa had put a cool Hatter drawing on my door, and her roomate made awesome newspaper snowflakes!

My floor came and sang to me and brought me cupcakes! They were so yummy, and I probably had 3 or 4 every day until they were gone! :) Probably not the healthiest thing ever, but it's my last year as a teenager, I have to live it up somehow!

And a random picture, I finished putting up all my pictures on my wall! I really don't like how they are organized though, I want more of a collage look, [like these] but that's hard to do when the pictures are all the same size, I don't have frames, and I don't have a budget. If you guys have any ideas let me know!

I'll end this extremely long post now. My birthday ended up really great! Things are going well here. My first midterms are next week, but I'm not too worried, I think if I put in the effort to study things will go well. Hope all is well in Cali!

Freshman Life

2009-09-13T15:34:00.001-07:00

Hi everybody! Sorry I'm so late but I thought I'd give you an update from college! My Mac is weird to blog on so I've been trying to figure that out so here are some recent pictures! We picked up my sister to have her help me move in. Tucker helped carry stuff too!

I thought I had soo much stuff but I have definitely already have a list a stuff I should have brought! I wish I had more movies and books, and also my scrapbooking stuff! I brought my scrapbook but not any of my stuff. Silly. Tucker also helped by drooling on my stuffed animals :)

Here's the view from my window! I don't see it too often because I don't have the bed by the window but it is still nice to look at sometimes!

Here's my bed and stuffed animals, I wish I would have brought more of them too!

Here's my desk and all my stuff!

Here's a typical meal...just kidding! I've only had a Hot Pocket for dinner a couple of times so far, and I took a picture because I was so excited because I've never had one before! :) I really like the Cannon Center, it's so nice and I love having a bunch of choices. I love having Dining Plus in general, it's so nice to have a little magic money card that I can swipe almost anywhere and get almost anything whenever I want. If you guys come visit me I will definitely take you out to lunch, because I love sharing and taking people to lunch!

Here's my little clothesline of pictures! It's small but it turned out cute. It fell down one night but I've got it pinned really good now. The walls are pretty plain otherwise but when I get some more prints I am going to stick those up on the wall too.
So those are all my pictures things are going pretty good! My classes are all good, I don't hate any of them. Choir is probably my favorite, it is so amazing. I'm excited about the music we are singing, how good we already sound and having a class with my cousin!

College is definitely awesome because it doesn't feel like school. It's like a warped version of summer, I have so much free time. It's been so fun to hang out with my family. I LOVE having my sister close and being able to do stuff with her every week. It's really awesome and I think it's helped me not be homesick. I love seeing my cousins and hanging out with them!

Dorm life is good. I like having my own place and being able to do whatever I want. My roommate and I get along really well. We are not buddy-buddy we but still do stuff together and get along fine. I know quite a few people on the floor, but I'm not really friends with anyone yet. That's definitely not complaining though, because I know it will happen eventually and I'm just biding my time, and besides, college is pretty awesome!

Hope life is treating you guys good wherever you are. I'll try and keep more updated on the happenings here in Provo! :)

New Blogging Machine

2009-08-16T22:51:00.000-07:00

Here's my computer for school! My older brother was super nice and shared his old Macbook Pro with me! It's mine for as long as I need it! My transition to Mac has not been bad at all, in fact I've already caught myself trying to pull Mac shortcuts on PCs. :) Transferring my music and files is still a work in progress, it definitely takes some time. I'm enjoying my own laptop with my own backgrounds and carrying it wherever I need to, or emailing from my bed! I don't think I'll mind doing homework on this too much!

Wallpaper Part II

2009-08-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

I started this post before I left so I'm finishing it now so I can get you all caught up on BYU stuff!
* * *
I conquered a little more wallpaper this week! I got all behind the kitchen sink done, which took a long time because of all the little areas. I also started the last big wall in the corner.The edges are hard because they varnished over the wallpaper. They decided to torment me by randomly painting sections in the middle of the wall! In the end, I got a large portion of that wall done, but I'm not going to try and put a picture in here because it's a little harder to arrange the pictures on my mac than on my home computer. As some parting words on my last post about wallpaper, here are Rachel's Rules on Wallpaper.
1. DON'T EVER PUT UP WALLPAPER!
If you really must put up wallpaper for some unexplainable reason then the rest of these rules are for you.
2. Please, only one layer of wallpaper at a time. If you already have a layer up, take it down before you put another one up. Multiple layers of wallpaper is recipe for disaster.
3. Similar to #2 is: Take your wallpaper down before it is hundreds of years old! Then it just becomes glued to the wall, a pain to take down for whomever is currently living in your house.
4. Do NOT paint, or varnish or anything of the sort over wallpaper. Anywhere. You think it might not really be a big deal if you get some on the edges while painting something else, but that just adds an hour of work for someone else later!

So ends the Summer of 2009 Wallpaper Saga! :)

Summer Projects

2009-08-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I was wandering around my house looking for something to do. I started picking at the only wallpaper that is left in our house, by the computer. Pretty soon, killing that wallpaper become my mission for the day. It sounds a little crazy, but when you're busy scraping wallpaper there's not a lot to think about except how much you hate that wallpaper!

This is a little after I started, these were the two layers I was taking down.

Yay! I figured near the end I could rip one layer off in big pieces!

Here is the one section of the wall I finished! There is still lots more left, but the computer and desk are in the way so that will have to wait a bit! It makes me so happy to look over and see a clean wall!

Help!

2009-07-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

Hey all you cratfy types out there! I'm trying to think of ways to decorate my dorm room. It needs to be cheap, colorful, easy to take with me or get in Utah, and not labor intensive! Any ideas?

Classes

2009-07-16T23:50:00.000-07:00

All registered! My current schedule:

American Heritage

Book of Mormon

HEPE

Geology

Choir

Intro to Interior Design

I'm thinking about changing the last one. I had such a hard time picking that last class. Everything was full, nothing fit my schedule...it's not like I dislike the class but I'm hoping to find something better. Thinking about taking Psychology. I have a feeling I'm going to have a hard time picking a major when all (the few) majors I am thinking about don't have any classes you can take without being accepted into the major!

College is in the air...

2009-07-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here doing nothing, I figured I might as well update my blog! Of course I can think of nothing interesting to write about. Gone are the days when I would spend all day thinking up blog posts (now I think in Facebook status updates).

Next Monday (or Sunday night at 11) begins college registration, and I only have 3 classes picked out! I'm sitting here wishing someone would tell me what to choose. It's like roomate anxiety all over again.

"Will this class be fun? Is it going to be too hard? I'm going to be too busy with my friends to do work! How late is too late? Is this teacher better or this one?"

Bleh. Making decisions we all know, is not my strong point. :) Hopefully I will try and post any more interesting things that come up!

Forever catching up!

2009-07-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

I'm definitely not as good at blogging as I used to be! I'm all graduated and well into summer now! But rather than talking about that I'm just going straigh into what's happening now!

I had a chance to go swing dancing this week! It turned out really fun, a little awkward and good practice for college. ;) I went with my friend Pretzel* to meet one of her friends and a couple other people. They didn't get there until probably an hour and a half after we did, so it was a lot of waiting and not knowing what was going on! They finally arrived and taught us some steps, and it was off to dancing! The basics are simple, but it definitely gets tricky when your partner tries to pull some fancy moves on you!

One funny story from the night: I danced with *Sean and noticed that he had some intense stare-age going on. I'm not good at making eye contact in normal situations (let along swing dancing) and was definitely looking every place possible, except his eyes. When we finished I told Pretzel about that, she said she noticed it too. When she danced with him again, she mentioned it. He laughed and replied that he was in debate, that's why and then said "Yeah, I think it made Rachel uncomfortable" I got a really good laugh out of that. I guess I'm an open book!

So I had good practice remember people's names, making conversation, and being as un-awkward as possible! Another funny thing I noticed is that when I get stressed about awkward situations I scratch the top of my nose!

But all in all, a very fun night, that I might do again sometime. Maybe. Dancing is great in books and movies, but no exactly my preffered way to meet people in real life! ;)

*names changed to protect the innocent

BYU Updates

2009-05-12T20:20:00.000-07:00

Just a few updates on college! My room selection went fine and I will be living in Helaman Halls, in the hall I wanted! (cousin tradition! :] ) My roomate and I have been talking on Facebook (thank goodness for the internet! I'd be freaking out without it!) and she seems really cool. I'll think we'll get along great! I've also been super blessed to get a scholarship that will cover tuition! This is really going to help me a lot, especially since I don't have a job yet, and will definitely be needing the help. If I can keep my grades it will be able to help me all through college! And...yup. One more AP test on Thursday that I keep forgetting about. Haha, not a good sign! ;)

Dresses

2009-05-12T19:53:00.000-07:00

It's Prom season! And you know what that means...dresses! I'm not going to prom, but I thought I'd use this chance to show off my favorite dresses that I'll never be able to afford! First up, probably my most favorite from Anthropologie!

I think with a little black sweater it would be perfect! I looked at my local Anthropologie but I couldn't find this dress to see it in person. The next one is also from Anthropologie.

Just a little longer and it's perfect! This last one is one that was on Pushing Daisies...yes my love for that show continues! ;)

Two screencaps so you can get a good idea of what it looks like! Perfect!

Pushing Daisies

2009-04-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching Season 1 of Pushing Daisies, thanks to my brother's Netflix, and can I just say how much I love it? Enough that I even had to blog about it! I'm so sad that this show was cancelled!!! Season 2 doesn't even come out on DVD until July, so I'm going to have to practice some serious patience before that rolls around. But really, people! If you haven't seen this show yet, go buy it from Target! It's on sale for 15.99 right now, which is a great deal for 9 episodes!! My icon folder is being flooded with Ned and Chuck icons...* sigh *

Catching up...

2009-04-01T16:12:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it's been over a month since I've blogged? It feels like that was just a while ago! What's new? Lent is almost over! Hooray hooray! I've proved I have self discipline, but really I just miss being in contact with people. I'm behind on the latest happenings, and I have a bunch of pictures I need to share! Speaking of pictures, I'm sure you would enjoy some random ones from this month...

Walking to Disneyland

Making a Chocolate Chip Cake with Chocolate Chip Frosting (and sprinkles) with college friends.

Cruising around after choir concerts

Finding random playground at the beach at nighttime!

That's a pretty short summary of some of the things that have been going on this month. Playing at that playground was one of my favorites. Last Saturday night we were cruising around (blasting our music and dancing as we normally do) when we decided we would go to the beach! We were delighted to find a playground right next to the parking lot, and that entertained us for quite a while.

In other news, I was sick this week, for the first time in a long time, but I'm feeling much better now. In fact, I seem to have gained more energy to do things (like blogging, and baking, and maybe some homework too!) Enjoy your week everyone!

Profile Picture

2009-02-27T16:03:00.000-08:00

I guess instead of Facebook I'm taking up my time with blogging! I just noticed my profile picture is broken. It was link from some Disney website, and it's definitely time for something new. Something that fits my almost college freshman, photography lover and learner and still the Disney addict like always! :) I guess I should do a picture of myself, but after a couple years of keeping my Board identity a secret, it's weird to think of putting a picture of myself here. Here are a few of my options, please please give me your opinions!!!!!

One of my 52 weeks self portraits that I thought was boring but got an awesome comment from Chilly on!

Classic!

From my Family Reunion last summer!

I totally can't find/think of any other good pictures, especially ones I am not in. Hm. We will have to see about that.

Lent 2009

2009-02-27T15:33:00.000-08:00

Hello all! It's Lent again! This year I decided to give up Facebook, the easiest 'hard' thing I could think of. I had even forgotten that this was what Tangerine gave up, and she was the first person to get me into Lent. Surprisingly, there have been a few people who think I can't do it, but I'm not worried about that. I don't miss it much, except for updating my status, which I have found I miss a lot. I think I'm going to keep a draft of all the status updates I would have done, some of them might be pretty funny! And that doesn't defeat the purpose, right? ...Right?

YAY!

2009-02-12T21:28:00.000-08:00

Quick post tonight but exciting news!!!

I got an email from a friend saying she had heard of someone finally being accepted for BYU, so I used my cousins trick and signed in to check the directory, and I was in! I double checked with my status and it's been changed to accepted even though they haven't emailed me yet!

So I've been accepted to BYU!!!!!! YAY!

New Year's Resolutions...in Febuary

2009-02-09T11:26:00.000-08:00

Yikes! It's hard to find time to post regularly. Sorry! Well I've had these resolutions since the beginning of the year, so I thought I'd share them now, so I can check back in next year on how I did.

1. Say morning prayers

I've alwasy had hard time with this but now I'm buckling down by giving myself a reward! If I say my prayers every morning for a week then I get to buy a song off iTunes!

2. Being kinder to my parents

This one's actually going pretty well. I've been working at not snapping at them when I'm upset, and answering in full sentences! Yay Teenagers!

3. Being productive!

Um...the internet sucks up a lot of my time. Example: now. This one still needs some work :)

4. Smile!!! My cousin is really into it, and it's definitely a good thing to work on!

5. And in my photography portion I have...52 weeks of Self Portraits! The best way to get better is to take more pictures, so that's what I'm doing! You can view my attempts at creativity at my photo blog here.

Christmas Presents

2009-01-15T16:06:00.000-08:00

This year, as I was coming up with ideas for gifts for friends, I came up with a 'perfect' idea! Since one of my friends literally has everything (especially any gift I tried to give her), I'd make her a present! Even better it would be cheaper than buying something! Little did I know that what it lacked in cost would completely be made up in effort! I decided to make her a Joe Jonas doll! I know, I know. You're all thinking: "Pw, really? Aren't you a little bit old for the Jonas Brothers? And you certainly you could find anything better than them!" Sadly, that is a completely different post for another time. Regardless, my friends are huge Jonas fans. I decided to go for a specific Joe Jonas from their Lovebug music video, pictured here:

(Just so all you nay-sayers can compare how my final product turns out, alright?) Anyway.

After searching quite a bit online, I found a pattern here. All the fabric I found in remnants at Joannes for a total under 10 dollars! And then began all the crazy work! All this was going on at the same time as my cupcke pops, in that insane week before Christmas break! Friday was the traditional friend gift exchange. We all hung out in the afternoon and gift exchange was put off until about 8 o'clock to give my dear mother to slave over finishing these dolls in the back room while I...talked. And did other stuff. Obviously, all the help from my mom was a HUGE gift to me, I definitely wouldn't have been able to finish these dolls without her. But enough talk, onto pictures!

There are a few differences between the two (the buttons, the arms) But all in all they turned out pretty well. Thankfully my friends appreciated all the hard work I put into them.

Academy Awards

2009-01-15T15:50:00.000-08:00

I just thought I'd let you all know that my brother is so cool, he let me eat the head of his official chocolate Oscar.

Yum.

Christmas Tree Pops

2009-01-10T21:11:00.000-08:00

Yeah! I finally made it to Christmas posts! The week before Christmas was absolutely insane. I had two essays due, tests, choir concerts, and my dad had surgery. And since that wasn't enough, I decided to go all crafty and add two (way more intense than I realized) projects! First up was Bakerella's Christmas Cupcake Pops! I spent about two afternoons making these. Wednesday, up until I went to my choir concert, and Thursday I spent decorating. I ran out of candy melts, so I think I still have about 7 tree shapes in the freezer...oh well! Onto pictures!

Cupcakes being molded into tree shapes.

Lollipop sticks in and ready for decorating!

One nicely finished tree!

The finished project!

The whole project wasn't really to difficult, but it was a little time consuming. The hardest part was decorating each individual pop. You dip it in the candy coating, then try and get all the excess off, make branch shapes on it, and put sprinkles for ornaments on it, all in the two seconds before it dries. But everyone said they tasted good and was surprised at how pretty they looked so I'm thinking it's worth it (maybe on a less stressful week next time though).

Books of 2008

2009-01-06T14:37:00.000-08:00

Last year I randomly decided to keep track of all the books I read. And surprisingly I acutally did! So here's my list of books read in 2008, ones denoted with an asterik I was re-reading. (P.S. I can't be held accountable for any extremely teenage books I may or may not have read...more than once)

Books Read in 2008

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

Bella at Midnight by Diane Stanley

The Fairy’s Return and other Princess Tales by Gail Carson Levine

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynn Jones

*Magic Study by Maria V. Snyder

Austenland by Shannon Hale

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder

Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Emma by Jane Austen

Rebel Angels by Libba Bray

The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray

*Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

*New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

*Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Grey King by Susan Cooper

*Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

Cathy’s Book by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman

Cathy’s Key by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

*Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith

Wren to the Rescue by Sherwood Smith

*The Host by Stephenie Meyer

*The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

Beauty Sleep by Cameron Dokey

Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

*Austenland by Shannon Hale

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson

*Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

*The Two Princesses of Bamare by Gail Carson Levine

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

*Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynn Jones

The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde

*Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

*Enna Burning by Shannon Hale

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

*River Secrets by Shannon Hale

*Mississippi Jack by L. A. Meyer

Ever by Gail Carson Levine

My Bonny Light Horseman by L. A. Meyer

49 books in all, only 16 that I've read before! Woohoo!

Happy 2009!

2009-01-05T18:50:00.000-08:00

For my first post of 2009, I'm still scrambling to get caught up on other stuff! One more Thanksgiving post and then I'm done with that! :)My cousin Jewel and her mom and dad were nice enough to take me to the American Girl Place with them, at the Grove. I don't know very many other people who had American Girl dolls when they were younger but I grew up with them. Their books are so fun to read and the doll outfits are adorable, I can't even pretend I don't love them. Here are some of my pictures!

Love this dress, and would totally wear it if it was in my size.

Same thing with this coat.

They had displays of all the different dolls and each outfit. I have Molly and this display just made me drool. So cute!

Me at dinner with my doll and her special chair!

My cousins doll, it looked just like her even down to the purple glasses!

My dinner! Really big and pretty good.

My delicious and beautiful desert! That's pudding in the flower pot. :)

Even in the bathrooms there were surprises! Doll holders in the stalls! How awesome is that? So awesome I had to take a picture. :0)

So I had a totally fun day and hope to go back again soon!

Thanksgiving 08

2008-12-25T14:53:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm on break it's time to back post a little! For Thanksgiving Elaine and Sheldon and Tucker came up and we had a blast! We played lots of board games, including PowerGrid, Wasabi (one of my favorites) and a very long game of Axis and Allies.

My sister and I made fondant since it's something I've been wanted to do for a while! (That's what too much Bakerella and Cake Wrecks can do to you) The fondant wasn't too hard to make, but it sure is not as easy as it looks to make those crazy beautiful creations!

There's my practicing photography with an epic cupcake shot! :)

I made the Kermit (aka Alien) one and made sister made the other three. Definitely not as easy as expected but it was fun to do and now I can say that I've worked with fondant. Speaking of which I think I have like a pound of it left in the fridge...

2008-12-05T15:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I used the words 'hook' and 'riff' in a sentence, and the person I was talking to understood what I was talking about! It was so exciting.

(Hopefully more posts coming soon.)

Tagged.

2008-11-25T20:35:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by Chilly a long time ago to write 7 random things about myself and since I'm bored, I will fulfil now.

1. When I'm unhappy or lonely (especially at night) I reread my favorite books. Which probably isn't that weird but all my random facts about myself I can't remember anymore.

2. I have a phobia of sticky things. I really hate when stickers or tape start to peel off and I can't stand dried glue on my fingers. I'm not really sure if that's related to sticky things.

3. We've been playing crab soccer a lot at school lately and generally I seem to really enjoy it. Almost a sport I can do! Today my wrist hurts from it though.

4. I collect spoons and cards. ( I always feel like I have cool random things about me but I cannot think of ANY right now. Bummer)

5. My favorite time to play piano is when I'm alone. (Seriously, these random things are lame. I must be tired)

6. When I laugh super hard (which doesn't happen as often anymore) I laugh like a goose. It's kind of hard to describe, like a honking, and very funny.

7. We used to have gerbils until I accidently "touched" one of them and suddenly his tail was bleeding. He didn't last too long after that. I even wrote a lovely book about it in second grade!

Yikes, that was a lot harder than I planned on! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Oh yeah, if you haven't done this you should because I say so. Yay.

Surprise

2008-11-19T15:35:00.000-08:00

Today when I got home I had a surprise waiting for me. It was a small blue package from BYU and I assumed it would be another dvd like I'd gotten previously. However, to my surprise it was a cd (with a nice case even) of choral selections from the University's choirs! I can always use additions to my music library (especially sunday music) so this was a great thing for me!

All the cool kids were doing it!

2008-11-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

Plus, I'm putting off doing anything productive (homework, studying, college applications, chacha). This is obviously much more fun.

*FOODOLOGY*

What is your salad dressing of choice? Ranch. That's it.
What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? Hm, that's a tough one. Obviously any sit down restaurant in Disneyland, or...gosh I don't even know. Italian or Mexican are good!
What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? Mmm. Mac and Cheese, any pasta really, or cereal
What are your pizza toppings of choice? Ham and pineapple or just cheese with light sauce!
What do you like to put on your toast? Butter and cinnamon/sugar, bunny bread! Or homemade strawberry jam.

*TECHNOLOGY*

What is your wallpaper on your computer? Baby Tucker of course!
How many televisions are in your house? Two.
What color cell phone do you have? I HAVE A CELL PHONE, it's black!

*BIOLOGY*

Are you right-handed or left-handed? Left.
Have you ever had anything removed from your body? Teeth...
What is the last heavy item you lifted? My dessert orders from choir, I almost dropped them about 5 times.
Have you ever been knocked unconscious? I've passed out but I don't think I've been knocked unconscious.

*BULLCRAPOLOGY*
If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Hmm, that's a tricky one. No, I think I'd make weird choice if I knew that.
If you could change your name, what would you change it to? I don't think I could for real change my name, it's too drastic.
Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000? Hmm, I'm very tempted to say yes, but I'm not sure if I could really do it.

*DUMBOLOGY*

How many pairs of flip flops do you own? Only two, I think, sadly.
Last time you had a run-in with the cops? Never.
Last person you talked to? In person was mom and online is Daniel! (almost the same as Chilly! ^-^)
Last person you hugged? I haven't been terribly huggy lately...I really don't know.

*FAVORITOLOGY*
Season? You mean their more than summer and winter? Just kidding, I really like them all except for spring.
Holiday?Thanksgiving is my favorite with Christmas and Halloween near behind.
Day of the week? Friday afternoon, and Saturday
Month? Hm. This is a toughee. I'm not really sure, September, December, June are some good ones.

*CURRENTOLOGY*

Missing someone? Yes. Lauren, all my siblings + nephew, Jackie and Lauren!
Mood? I have a cold right hand and I'm a little bored.
Listening to? The World I Know - Collective Soul
Watching? Um?

*RANDOMOLOGY*

First place you went this morning? Seminary.
What can you not wait to do? Go to Disneyland! And be off of school!
What's the last movie you saw? Madagascar 2!
Do you smile often? Yeah :]

Cake blogs

2008-11-07T17:41:00.000-08:00

Hello! I'm back from a break and now that I've run out of other things to do on the internet I thought I'd blog. Nothing super interesting to report from my life right now, so instead just some extra fun blogs I've come across.

Cake Wrecks- http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

This is great anytime you need a laugh! They post pictures of professional cakes with hilariously silly mistakes and or even just plain weird things!

Bakerella- http://bakerella.blogspot.com/

Since I'm in a cake/baking mood this blog has beautiful cupcakes and design that are lovely to look at and probably delicious to eat! I'm very tempted to make my own fondant and try some cool designs but we'll se how that goes.

My Fish

2008-10-25T18:13:00.000-07:00

So I never posted about how I got fish for my birthday! They are perfect for my because they have Mickey Mouse shapes on their tails! Miss Artist gave them to me and named them Minnie and Mickey!

Unfortunately, Minnie bit the dust this afternoon. It might have been because of last night, when I was transferring them back to their bowl (after cleaning it) and one of them accidently flopped out of the net and went without oxygen for probably a minute. I'm pretty sad that one is already dead, because I've only had them for about a month (granted Minnie did last longer then my previous fish James Christian William Moose Nagini Trout). It was also pretty sad to see her floating in the bowl. Here's to a long life for Mickey!

Free Handbag!

2008-10-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

Need a new handbag? Check here! 24 completely free handbags are being given away!

Birthday Party!

2008-10-05T19:10:00.000-07:00

I'd been wanting to go to Disneyland with Kim and Lisa for a while, and of course for my birthday and I was lucky enough to have these two trips coincide! With Kim, Lisa and her two girls, and me and Miss Artist, we had quite a group. I had fun playing with Lauren and Emily especially! They are just so cute and made me laugh the whole time! (Sorry this post is picture heavy, I really tried to not post so many, but there were just too many cute and funny ones to choose from I could have posted about 10 more!)

Emily was a good sport and let me take pictures of her.I'm pretty cruel, because if I stopped to get gas and someone took pictures of me, I'd look pretty confused too. (I've never done it by myself!) But this picture makes me smile so I had to post it!

Emily really like to hang out with Kim, just like me!
They make me laugh. So cute!

I love this picture! So awesome

This is us eating fancy ice cream on Main Street (a super awesome birthday present from Miss Artist). Lisa also bought me cupcakes, which was super sweet! We were too full to enjoy them that night, but I certainly enjoyed them after that! :) Miss Artist and I watched Lauren (and Emily who was asleep) while Kim and Lisa went on Indiana Jones. We fed her jelly beans and she laughed whenever I put my little princess crown on. It was hilarious! We had so much fun having a girls night out at Disneyland, though you could tell we were getting a little giggly and loopy at the end. ;) Definately one of my favorite Disneyland trips, hopefully we can go back soon!

Earrings

2008-10-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

So my posts are going be a little out of order, since that's the way I feel like doing it! I've been meaning to have my ears pierced for a couple of months now, but things have kept coming up (no one to take me, Elaine decided to go into labor...). But last friday I finally got it done! Since I'm legal my mom didn't have to come (which is good because she can't stand anything to do with ear piercings) so I took a bunch of friends to come with me! We had a lot of fun (even though the worker at the store wasn't too happy to have us all there) and it didn't hurt very much! It's taken me a little while to get used to them but I really enjoy the fact that I'm wearing jewlery but I don't have to think about it. I can't wait till I can put new ones in!

My friends made me hold the stuffed bear. :)

Quotes

2008-09-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

So I have to pick out a senior quote and while I have a whole book of quotes, I've narrowed it down to these! I'd love your opinion on what I should choose! I wanted something that was profound and funny, or at least not too serious. Thanks to Chilly for some of these quotes!

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. -Albert Einstein

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put put on the troubled seas of thought. -John Kenneth Galbraith

The best way to get started is to stop talking and begin doing. -Walt Disney

All our dreams can come true-if we have the courage to pursue them. -Walt Disney

If we did all the things we are capable of we would literally astound ourselves. -Thomas Edison

My life has a superb cast, but I can't figure out the plot. -Ashleigh Brilliant

Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious...and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. -Walt Disney

Life's like a movie, write your own ending Keep believing, keep pretending we've done just what we set out to do Thanks to the lovers, the dreamers, and you. -Kermit and the Muppets

The most sophisticated people I know-inside they're all children. We never really lose a certain sense we had when we were kids. -Jim Henson

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. -Madeline L'engle

Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. -Mark Twain

Tagged

2008-09-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

So Kim tagged me to say 6 interesting things about myself, which I'm having a hard time coming up with.

1. I'm officially a ChaCha guide! If you need any questions answered text ChaCha (242242) (just for the fee to text) and a guide will text you back an answer. That's what I do! My first couple of questions were kind of scary but now I've got the hang of it.
2. I'm not really into sports at all. I used to play them in general when I was a kid but that's pretty much it. I've never watched a lot of football (I still don't really understand it) and same with pretty much every other sport. I did play soccer for like one year in first grade. My parents didn't give me a trophy like they gave all my siblings. :[
3. I really love to dust things. I think it's because dusting was always the chore I had as a little kid, and now I just enjoy watching dusty things become new! If you want me to come dust your house, let me know, and I will!
4. I love blankets! I wear them (well...I wrap them around me and we've always called it "wearing" them!) all around the house, even in the summer, and even to dinner. Generally if I'm home, my blanket is with me.
5. I have a really hard time making decisions. I get that from my mom's side of the family (also the tendency to stick my tongue out in concentration while playing the piano). I have the hardest time trying to decide between two or more things. I'm frequently asked to name my favorite Disney character (just one!!) and I usually end up not answering because I end up thinking about it for so long.
6. Last year I read a 600 page book in the 3 days before the AP test, and still got a 4.

Yay! I tag Dough, Chilly, and Elaine!

How to be a Better Reader

2008-09-21T20:14:00.000-07:00

Shannon Hale is one of my favorite authors, not only because she writes some of my favorite books, but because she seems like one of the funniest people ever! Her blog is always interesting to read, and this is no exception! Lately she's been doing a series of posts about how to be a better reader. They're really interesting, especially because of what I've had to read for English AP (You know, things with "literary merit"). The first part is here and you can find the rest of it there on her blog. Enjoy!

Adult stuff

2008-09-21T19:49:00.000-07:00

So Saturday was the ward activity, an adult dinner. I helped my mom with the centerpiece (very me, as the picture shows.) I wasn't planning on staying because I looked pretty gross, and was going to ChaCha at home, but Lisa convinced me to stay! I had a fun time talking with everyone, and definately had better food than I would have had if I stayed home and cooked for myself! :]

The one downside was that a friend who left for college today stopped by while I was gone, so I didn't get to say goodbye. That's okay, I guess, because who really wants too?

My Birthday Present

2008-09-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

School

2008-09-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

So it's September and back to school! I really don't have much to say about this! My classes are fine, and while I was a little stressed out about having 3 AP classes, I'm doing okay with it for the time being. (This will probably change during testing time). My teachers are all nice, and classes are good even though AP Stats is pretty ridiculous. It's so nice to get out at 2, I have time to actually do everything I want to! Choir will take some getting into, it's so strange without the seniors! But in general, everything's going good!

Wrap up

2008-09-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to do a post of my last couple of days, but I kept putting it off. The past 4 days were kind of this weird limbo stage. It wasn't really summer because I couldn't really go anywhere (like Utah!) but school hadn't started yet. Saturday I was bored and grumpy all day but had a good ending with my first trip to Ikea! It was better than I could have imagined. I had so much fun, I think we spent about 2 hours there, but it really felt like 30 minutes! I had so much fun sitting on all the furniture and opening all the drawers!

And I got to go to Disneyland twice, which I really should fit in this post but I'm running out of time so I guess it will have to be a separate one!

Livejournal

2008-08-24T20:40:00.000-07:00

So I caved in and decided to get a Livejournal for my Photo of the Day. You can view it here: http://paperback-w.livejournal.com/ and eventually I will have a link to it on the side of my blog. If you use Google Reader you can subscribe still, and for everyone else, sorry to add another site to check! I'll still update here although with school coming up I won't have time for everything (Facebook, blog, Livejournal, real journal, etc) so we'll just have to see how it turns out!

More Tucker pictures

2008-08-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

Since I really don't want to type all the same things and post the same pictures as my sister, I'm referring you to her blog so you can read it straight from the Mommy's mouth! Click Elaine under "The Cool Ones!" :)

My ear is peeling. Ouch

All's Well

2008-08-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

I'm back from camp and feel obligated to post and say that I'm not dead and I also had a decently fun time! Catalina was beautiful, food was good and I had a great time hanging out with everyone especially Lisa. I'm sunburned on my head, neck and face, and I'm sore on my shoulders and I still feel a little lost after vacation and definately not ready to be in the real world. So yeah.

Nevermind...

2008-08-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

There's a brand new box of ziploc bags on the table for me. I'm glad I didn't go to the store and buy more, but I feel pretty silly especially I pretty much whined about it all over the internet. This is why it's probably a good idea that I don't stay on the computer all the time. I think I would be posting weird blogs at 3 AM just like Dough and Tangerine have said in the past, thank goodness the computer is turned off at night. Well I'm going to go get some actual work done.

Grumble

2008-08-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

So Mom's gone off to be with Tucker (lucky) and I'm stuck here getting ready for Girl's Camp. I only had two things to do really, go shopping for some batteries, and wash some grapes. I went shopping in the morning and got that all done. I came back to find that I had only one gallon ziploc bag, and I only need one more! I'm very frustrated that I was thwarted in one of my few tasks to do today. I really really don't want to go back to the store, so I think I'll put it off until the last possible second.

Meme

2008-08-18T20:09:00.001-07:00

A meme I stole from Chilly, because I'm procrastinating doing anything useful tonight.

Ten Things I Wish I Could Say to Ten Different People Right Now:
1. I can talk to you about everything and anything, and that makes you pretty much the best person in the world.
2. I love new friends. Thanks for talking to me, it makes me feel so special!
3. We haven't talked in a while because I know your busy, but I still think you're pretty darn cool
4. I really wish you would take some respoinsibility in your life and own up to your actions and choices. You tell me I whine alot but I think you do.
5. You need to work on your communication skills. You never reply to messages and you act angry without letting anyone know why.
6. Whenever we have to think of someone we look up to, you are always the first person. Thank you for being the best example of the person I want to be.
7. We're far apart but I know if we were closer we would have been better friends than we already are.
8. You are the most relxed person, and the most defensive person that I've met, at the same time.
9. I haven't met you yet, but I know we are going to be great friends.
10. Sometimes I think you're really stupid, and I wish you would hurry up and leave on your mission.

Nine Things About Myself:
1. My favorite time to get work done is at night, because there's nothing better to do.
2. I get really good grades, but I feel pretty stupid sometimes, especially in English.
3. In college, I would really love to major in Taking Electives.
4. If I don't know all the little details or exactly how something will work, I stress about it.
5. I hate that my hair isn't very blonde right now, and at the same time I'm contemplaiting dying it brown.
6. I'm looking forward to college so much, but I'm not sure why since I don't really enjoy large social situations.
7. I eat when I'm bored.
8. I really really want to wear make up more often than I do, but I have no idea how and I'm very self conscious about it.
9. I'm a horrible speller.

Eight Ways To Win My Heart:
1. Compliment me. It's so easy. Sincerely, though.
2. Talk about Disneyland.
3. Let me take pictures of you.
4. Write me a note. If you've ever written me a note then I've kept it. I have nice notes dating back to like 3rd grade.
5. Watch movies I like with me.
6. Make phone calls for me.
7. Drive. Even if it's my car.
8. Make me feel included or make an effort to see me.

Seven Things That Cross My Mind a Lot:
1. What can I eat?
2. I really messed that up.
3. What a blessing.
4. When will I see [usually Dough, now Tucker] again?
5. When will [something] happen?
6. I wonder who's online?
7. Where is [not online friends]?

Six Things I Do Before I Fall Asleep:
1. Make my bed.
2. Wash my feet, brush teeth, etc.
3. Usually I clean my room a little bit.
4. Read scriptures.
5. Write in my journal.
6. Set out my dream journal in case it's needed.

Five People Who Mean a Lot:
1. Tucker (I accidently typed his name twice before I noticed)
2. Dough (+ her Mom and Family)
3. Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother and Big Brother
4. My aunties, uncles and cousins
5. And whoever else that I don't feel like naming

Four Things You’re Wearing Right Now:
1. A tank top.
2. A red shirt that's getting really worn out.
3. Jeans
4. A silk blanket.

Three Songs That You Listen to Often (Currently):
1. Forever Young by Rooney (Also Simply Because and Get Away)
2. Pieces by The Bridges
3. I really hate to admit this but SOS by the Jonas Brothers (Don't worry, I'm not a psycotic fan girl, I just think that song is catchy)

Two Things You Want to Do Before You Die:
1. Check the List!
2. One of my top ones on that list is vist Disneyland Paris.

One Confession:
1. I started writing in my journal again because I was upset my best friend got a boyfriend, hehe. :] But I've worked through it!

Picture

2008-08-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

Snuggly Baby Tucker!

Photo a Day

2008-08-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

While I was cruising blogs waiting for Dough to come home last night, I noticed that Chilly had a photo a day section! I thought that would be a great way for my to practice taking pictures and share them, so I'm stealing your idea Chilly! I'm trying to decide whether I should just post them here, or get a separate Livejournal for it. I've wanted a Livejournal for a while (to use all the icons I've collected) but figured it was kind of silly to have two blogs. But maybe if I'm posting separate stuff it wouldn't be that bad. What do you guys think? Vote on my new poll!! (Especially you Google Reader's you!)

Baby Mills

2008-08-17T17:03:00.000-07:00

Back at home to give you the rest of my update! My parents talked to Elaine this morning so that's when I got these details. His name is Tucker Sheldon Mills, 6 lbs 12 oz, 20 in. He had some air between his lung and chest cavity so Elaine was a little pressed to get him out and to a doctor. He's doing better but his breathing hasn't slowed down so right now he is in a Level 2 nursery. But other than that mom and baby are both doing good! I don't know when I will get to see him because I have to go to Girl's Camp this week (bleh). I'm so tired and sick of being in the car but I'd drive back roght now if I could! So that's it for now guys, have a good week!

Tucker :)

I'm an Aunt!!!!!!!!!!

2008-08-16T23:07:00.000-07:00

I'm updating from Las Vegas on Dough's computer for some very exciting news!!!!!! (Forewarning, there will be lots of exclamation marks in this post!)

I'M AN AUNT!!!!!!!

At about 9:00 ish tonight Elaine had her very first baby, a baby boy! He is 6 lbs 12 oz and that's about all that I know right now!

Friday night she was sick all night and we thought it was either a bug or something she ate. This morning she was having pretty regular contractions but we had to head for home since we we're taking some kids in our ward home. We didn't really think it would come today since Elaine kept saying he would come late. Sheldon finally dragged her to the hospital and when they got there she was 8 cm dialated! She had the baby less than an hour later! :)

There is an air bubble between the lung and the chest in the baby, and we heard that sometimes it goes away but we don't know a lot of details, they were about to talk to the doctor. I'll update tomorrow when I get a chance but that's about it for now!

Welcome to the world General!!!!!!

So fitting...

2008-08-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

Dear 100 Hour Board,
You need to find new readers to make things more interesting around here. Where will you look?
-Sweets and Joy

Dear Sweets~
We will ~~brainwash~~ teach our younger siblings early to read the Board.
-Dragon Lady

Oh the truth of this statement!

Wordle

2008-08-05T14:44:00.000-07:00

My Wordle. Since my most recent posts were about EFY and Rooney, most of the words are from those!

House of Blue concert

2008-07-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

Hm. This is probably one of the most exciting things for me recently, but to start I have to go back a couple of months. Pretzel and I got started talking about the main guy from Princess Diares (Robert Shwartzman who plays Michael Moscovitz). We were talking about the fact that he's in a real band (Rooney), and she said they were pretty good. So she sent me the link to their Myspace so I could listen to their music. I was pretty hooked, listening to those four songs over and over. She bought their cd and I burned a copy. It's totally one of my favorites!

Basically, this was the first time I've enjoyed a band's music, not just one song. I was so super excited that when I looked up the tour dates, I knew that I had to go to this concert! No other concert would be good enough for my first! My parent's wouldn't let me go just with my friends, and there was no way I would go with my parents. After going through all my siblings, I decided to ask Kim to come and she graciously accepted! Lisa, Kayla and Miss Artist came along for the ride which was awesome since all my friends ditched me. Anyway, I should probably wrap this post up. The concert was amazing and so much fun! I was literally excited about it for a week straight. I wanted to tell everyone about it! Kayla thankfully was brave enough to brave the pit with me, which was fun. Locksley and The Bridges were support. The Bridges were pretty good and under appreciated. Locksley was pretty cocky and I was mobbed by fangirls as bad as at the POTC Premiere. The Jonas Brothers showed up to watch Rooney (not the other bands though...hmm) so most of the crowd was excited about that. Sadly cameras weren't allowed inside so I don't have any picture of the actual even, but of us hanging out before.

We saw Little Cesar on the way there.

Did I mention that the venue was the House of Blues on Sunset Strip? So cool.

Kim, you're lucking out because I really should post pictures of you but I'm being nice. You should really meet my Uncle Kirt who's motto is something like "If you hide, I take more pictures". You'd learn to smile around him pretty quick!
Time to finish up this needlessly long post. Good times guys.

EFY '08

2008-07-29T19:24:00.000-07:00

Well, what to say about EFY? It's too hard to summarize a week of amazing-ness. Some things were just as good as last year (the spiritual stuff), some things were better (actually made some friends), and some were worse (the dances, no awards). I really got to know these two guys Darrik and Cory (aka Prince Derek like Swan Princess, and Cory was from the United Arab Emerates, cool), and we hung out quite a bit during the week which was super fun. Our counselor was the cutest girl ever! She was so energetic and hilarious. And of course, my testimony was really strengthened. And for lack of anything better to write, here's a list of quotes that will make no sense to you, but will thoroughly entertain me!

"My girls are smart and pretty. A triple threat! There's probably one more" -Sarah
"Nagini, look at my book!" -Sarah
"Very Well" -Sarah (with teeth hand motions)
"I'm all about proper grammar and when the put 'funner' in the dictionary, I was PISSED!" -Matt
"There's a lot of me quotes" -Matt
"You cannot worthily hold the priesthood if you saw the words pwn or n00b. It goes hand in hand with racism." -Matt
"Facebook me!!" -Pretty much everyone
(Meeting Sarah for the first time) "Guys, look at the beautiful views your windows have!!!!" -Sarah
(In the morning before devotionals) "Guys look at the boy's pants blowing in the wind!" -Sarah
"I love you all! My girls are in the garbage can breaking the rules!" -Sarah
"I'm sitting in Coke, it's like I peed my pants! -Anna
"See ya later!" -Jessie
"Oh my Dani!" -Sarah
"We don't need alcohol to have a good time!!" -Sarah (I don't even remember what we were doing at this point :] )
"Vegas ripped my ear! EAR RIPPER!" -Jessie
"What kind of dog is it?" "A lobster" -Don't remember who?
"I choked on a nutter butter" -Cory
Anna: Do your feet itch?
Me: Nope
Anna: Oh mine do!
Vegas: See that's when you say "Oh yeah mine don't either!"
"There's a bump in my butt!" -Jessie
Jessie: "I can't even look it you or I start laughing!"
Vegas: "Me?"
"Whatever blows up your skirt!" -Vegas

Busy Bee

2008-07-19T23:19:00.000-07:00

For an exciting 200th post, I'm going to write about how I really need to blog about multiple things! Vacation, EFY, Disneyland Adventures, and my very first concert all should be coming up soon hopefully. Well, after next week since I'll be gone then too! At least you all have something to look forward to. ;)

Blog Happy

2008-07-02T21:36:00.000-07:00

Since it's summer I've had free time to actually do what I want! I've finally started to work on the scrapbook I've had lying around for about 5 years.I decided to do a couple pages about then I went to the Pirates of the Caribbean Premiere. It's actually been really fun to work on, and so far it's turning out good. I left a couple parts blank, so I would have room to write in some of what happened that day. I emailed my two friends what they remembered so I would have all the info before I started to write. Sadly, they didn't email me back, and I was deprived of my new and fun activity! Tonight I was complaining to Dough (and as usual she listened and was generally awesome) and thinking how sad I was that I didn't write in my journal back then so I couldn't read what I had written about it. And then it hit me! I had blogged about it! So I can now continue scrapbooking with me new information. When I printed out the post, it came up as one whole page on Microsoft Word (single spaced, font 10!). Who knew I could write that much?

Pieces of Flair

2008-06-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

Haha, well Dough hasn't kicked me off the computer yet (like I told her too), so I guess I'll do a quick blog post while I'm at it!

On Facebook (yikes! I know!) there is the application called Pieces of Flair. Basically, you can add little pictures in button form to a bullentin board. Surprisingly, it's pretty addicting and a fun way to show off your likes and dislikes. I felt the need to share mine with you all!

That's the best picture of my flair I could come up with! I'm too lazy to type out all the small text so good luck trying to decipher it! And the camer flair, isn't normally that big, but my mouse was over it when I captured the picture so yeah! Oh yeah, and the peppers in the upper left corner are covering up a picture of Dough and me, because you aren't ready for that yet :) I love my flair, it's so me!

Official Decision

2008-06-22T16:32:00.000-07:00

I have officially decided I'm going to live outside this summer. It's so hot in my house! And the killer is that we don't have any air conditioning! Ok, so I live like 15 minutes from the beach and normally there is a breeze so the temperature is fine. But for about 2 weeks out of the year it's just miserable. Also, it's rather unfortunate that the computer is in one of the hottest corners in the house (my computer time has gone down considerably). I think I'm going to build a cool fort outside so that I can just do everything outside.

#84

2008-06-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

Time to update my 100 things list! I put belong to a choir knowing that I would join choir but I really wanted to feel like I belonged! And how true that is. I really don't know what to say, choir is like this magical experience that you just have to experience. And generally choir was fun, but the best part was making friends. I've made two of the best friends I've had in a long time. Somehow we became friends and not only did it make learning our parts easier, we had an amazing time doing it! There are so many inside jokes I could list (but I won't, you should be grateful!). And the saddest part is I only knew Lackie (their combined nickname, not as cool as Pretzel's and mine- Ricotta!) for one year. Graduation was yesterday and L was bawling, so Pretzel and I started crying as well. But I'm so grateful for the amazing year I've had, with all our amazing memories of Reno, and choir in general! Yay!

Nails Update

2008-06-19T21:02:00.000-07:00

No picture to go with this on guys, sorry! I figured it was time to update how growing my nails out was going! And sadly, my right hand has suffered. I've been having a hard time keeping all my nails long at the same time, but this is the first time all of my nails are back how they used to be! Finals are to blame! My english final was making me nervous, hence, my right hand taking the damage! (I write with my left hand so I can't bite my nails while I'm writing!) The good news is, I'm much better at keeping my nails long, and I'm plannin on growing them out extra long so I can get a manicure! After that I'll probably trim them down a bit, but I'm looking forward to the options! :)

Beds

2008-06-03T20:18:00.000-07:00

I know this will make 3 posts in one day (a record in my recent history) but this was just too amazing to not share with you all. When I saw this bed, it was love at first sight.

Is that not just about the coolest thing you've ever seen? Forget giving my kids that bed, it is all mine! It even has a mast, and lights on the side! And don't forget the convient drawers on the side, you'll need the extra storage with all the space this takes up! And a slightly more realistic looking bed, extremely well crafted, and even more expensive!

This is from the Walt Disney Signature collection. Beautiful furniture inspired by Walt himself! I love that all the pieces have names that relate to Walt Disney and his history. This is the Studio Bookcase Bed. I love the sleek look of this bed, and it has lots of storage! (I'm a big fan of storage can you tell? That what comes from living in a tiny house.) Unfortunately, this bed costs $5,699 so it doesn't look like I will be buying it anytime soon. But I can dream right? Maybe if I wish on a star I'll get this bed.

This is Home-Switchfoot

2008-06-03T16:54:00.000-07:00

I've got my memories
They're always
Inside of me
But I can't go back
Back to how it was
I believe now
I've come too far
No I can't go back
Back to how it was
Created for a place
I've never known

Chorus:
This is home
Now I'm finally
Where I belong
Where I belong
Yeah, this is home
I've been searching
For a place of my own
Now I've found it
Maybe this is home
Yeah, this is home

Belief over misery
I've seen the enemy
And I won't go back
Back to how it was
And I got my heart
Set on
What happens next
I got my eyes wide
It's not over yet
We are miracles
And we're not alone

(Chorus)

And now after all
My searching
After all my questions
I'm gonna call it home
I got a brand new mindset
I can finally see
The sunset
I'm gonna call it home

(Chorus)

Now I know
Yeah, this is home
I've come too far
Now I won't go back
This is home

June

2008-06-03T16:35:00.001-07:00

Well now that it's officially June (3rd) I can say what I've been doing instead of blogging! Last month I wrote in my journal everyday! I don't really know what started me on this spree, but I have really enjoyed it. Sadly, I think most of the things I have written are rather boring (whining about upcoming bad things, random things, and for a while, I frequently wrote about Twilight. [That is probably the most girly, teenager-ish thing I have ever written on my blog, but in my defense I am a teenage girl and dang-it I'm going to act like it occasionaly!]) But I'm improving at writing in my journal and blogging, so yay for the lucky 3 people that read my blog! :)

I have a habit

2008-05-31T15:01:00.000-07:00

of spilling things on myself. In seventh grade it was yogurt, a pretty gloopy kind too, right on the front of my pants. Last night we had a fund raiser at church. It was a cruise theme, so we had lots of little goldfish to put in individual jars. I was holding the bag while Miss Artist was trying to scoop the fish out with a shovel (we didn't have anything better to use at the time) when I got distracted for a moment and the top of the bag spilled over onto my lap! No fish were hurt, but unfortunately it looked like I had had an accident! Well the dinner was going to start in about 15 minutes so I decided I would run home to change quick. On my way to the car (about 2o feet away) who should be coming in but the 2nd counselor in the bishopric who is also my math teacher! I quickly explained that I was attacked by fish and ran home to change. Of course, the incident was brought up all night, and is not likely to be forgotten soon!