for being the dog that doesn't settle down, she sure knows how to strike an intense pose.

 

I got a camera and now someone thinks she's a model.

 

falling in love... with fall

if you would have asked me last week if I was ready for fall I would've told you to shut it, but according to the runny nose I've had since Tuesday, and the fact that the leaves are already changing colors, it's fast approaching.

I'm excited.

Music speaks for me.

 

I can't be artistic on command, but if an idea sits in my head long enough, it tends to leak out.

 

Sometimes I'm happy with the results, and sometimes I'm not.

 

What I can tell you is that I'm enjoying playing the ukulele, even though I only know how to play one song.

 

If you ever want to have a sing along to you are my sunshine, just ask. You just might have to pause while I switch between chords in the middle of the song. 

 

 

And because I've yet to create any music that's "magical", enjoy a video of someone who has.

Molly Kate Kestner:

 

p.s. painting tropical pictures onto a ukulele will not decrease your desire to pack up and move to Hawaii.

I'm a big kid with a big kid job now

I love my job, I truly do. Working the same schedule every day has added some sanity to my life and it's been great. Need to make a doctor's appointment? sweet. I know exactly what hours I work. It's a magical thing, a white collar job, I think it's something everyone should get to experience.

No uniform, paid holidays, paid vacation... Let's face it, as fun as fast food was, it made me miserable. My heart aches for my former managers and co-workers that are still dealing with that mess every day.

The one unfortunate thing about my job is that I don't get to use my paid vacation for the first 6 months that I work there. As far as I knew, that was fine. I had Saturdays and Sundays all to myself to plan my events on. And I only work mornings, so I could even start my weekend adventures after 2 on Fridays. 

Fine and dandy.

I just wish that people would stop planning things on weekdays. If it's more than a two hour drive, I probably won't be making it to your event if it's on a weekday. I really am truly sorry, but I have bills to pay. I hope you understand.

I wish I could be there for everything, but I can't and it breaks my heart.

The most beautiful thing I've ever written.

Earlier today, I walked into Allen's parents house and found his Mom sitting on the couch squirting a small mountain of chocolate syrup on a half peeled banana with the utmost concentration. As the chocolate squeeze bottle made noises any first grader would be proud of, she simply looked at me with her exhausted eyes and said "it's been that kind of day.", and shoved the banana in her mouth. 

Yeah, it's been that kind of day. 

Daffodils & Church Music

It's such a treat when I forget to change my Pandora station back after Sundays.

Call me weird, but I love hearing Church Hymns outside of Church.

Also, MoTab puts Leia and Tymbur straight to sleep, so that's a plus.

Also, the daffodils are blooming!

Puppy Treats

When we first got married, the hunt for an apartment began. We knew two things. 1 - We were moving to a college town, and 2 - We wanted a dog.

We found an apartment that accepted pets and put a deposit on it so nobody else could swipe it from us. It was a bad move on our part, but that's a completely different story.

Allen was adamant that we were getting a Husky, and I just wanted a puppy.

One day while I was at school, my sweet husband suddenly had the idea to go to the animal shelter without me. I was mad, and an hour away, so I skipped my last class and went to a different animal shelter on the hunt for our new furry child. I walked straight past the little black puppy surrounded by a swarm of people in the lobby, and straight to the rows of dogs in the back. There were several that looked at me with their big eyes and stole my heart, and I even snapped a picture of one to send to my husband.

I walked back out to the lobby to try to get signal on my phone to send it to him and noticed the swarm of people was gone, and so was the little black puppy.

As I wandered around trying to catch the signal, I caught a glimpse of her. A family had taken the little puppy into the bonding room (or whatever it's called) to play with her and she was chowing down on a treat. A boy escaped from the room and I said, "That puppy is so cute! Are you guys taking it home?" he told me no. I watched through the glass as the family played with her and they beckoned me in. I snapped a picture of her cute little baby face, and the family left. She fell asleep on my shoe, and I sat there for a good twenty minutes waiting for her to wake up. I sent this picture to Allen, and somehow it went right through. He fell in love instantly.

 

.

 

 

Next thing I knew, I was swiping my card and loading this little girl into the car. She really wanted to be close to me, so she tried climbing on my head as I was driving on the freeway.

 

By the time we were home, she already had a name.

 

Princess Leia.

 

She slept for the first month and has been awake and crazy ever since.

 

 

Baby Leia

Last week, as I was perusing KSL's ad's, I found this handsome guy. He's a husky mix, and his owner just didn't have time for him anymore.

I, of couse, called immediately. The owner didn't pick up. So I called like 7 more times. He called back finally, and next thing I knew, we were on our way to meet a cute little guy named Timber. He snuggled right up to us, and then got slightly distracted when he spotted a golf ball. We loved him immediately, and brought him home with us.

Being a couple years old already, we didn't want to confuse him by giving him a new name, so we just changed it a little bit. Instead of Timber, he's now

Darth Tymbur

So now we're in love with both of our furry friends and we seem to be going through treats really fast around here. I stumbled across a really simple recipe on pinterest for doggie treats, and decided to change the recipe around a little bit. (Original Recipe found HERE)

 

Behold, the easiest recipe you will ever make.

 

 

Ingredients:

 

Baby Food (I used the Gerber Carrot 3.5 oz one)

1 cup Stone ground rice flour (the rice flour is easier on puppy tummies)

water

 

And that's it. I mixed the baby food and the flour and added water bit by bit until it was the consistency of a good rollable cookie dough.

 

I would recommend rolling it out, but I don't have a rolling pin (My birthday is in September, cough cough) so I just pounded it out on the floured counter til it was about 1/4" thick.

 

I cut the shapes and arranged them on a pan and baked them in the oven for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

These dogs are the closest thing my mom has to grandchildren at this moment, so she spoils them. That's the reason the only cookie cutter I own is shaped like a dog treat. You can use other shapes and it will work just fine.

 

Let them cool before feeding them to your pup.

Store in a paper bag. They're crunchy.

 

If you use a different kind of baby food, make sure that there aren't any extras in there. The carrot one has carrots and water listed on the ingredients.

Onions and Garlic are poisonous to dogs along with grapes and raisins and chocolate. Don't mix any of those in!

 

 

The great thing about this is that it didn't smell bad! Allen was watching Psych during the whole process and commented that whatever I was making smelled good. I offered him one, but he declined.

Leia, on the other hand eats hers and then tries to steal Tymbur's from him.

 

Let me know if you have any other yummy puppy treats for me to spoil my babies with!

because i'm behind on the times.

We took these almost a year ago, so I figured it was time to share them on the neglected blog.

 

Hope you love them as much as I do.

 

 

 

 

 

The Plan

I have a plan.

It's a top secret plan. Don't tell my husband.

Our current bookshelf is tiny. It reaches my hips, and my hips are wider than it. I could seriously take a fork to this thing and swallow it in one bite. Almost.

Now, I know it's pretty much a sin, but when we moved to Cedar City I didn't take my whole collection of books with. Don't tell Meggie from Inkheart. She would be heartbroken. (Great book, by the way. Read it. It's magical.) I lived for a miserable 4 months without any of my beloved books. (I worked at a bookstore... Don't feel too bad for me.)

So now my husband thinks that it's acceptable to only have this little bite sized bookshelf in our house and it's just not. These books are essential. I need them in my life. On a beautiful shelf. In my tiny apartment.

So here's the plan.

I'm going to pull my books out one by one and put them on my snack-sized shelf. It will happen slowly. He wont even see it coming. And then one day the tiny shelf will just not be enough. I wont be able to part with a single book on the shelf, so we'll have to get a bigger shelf, and then a bigger one. And then one day I'll have a Belle sized library and life will be wonderful.

 

 

I imagine my shelf looking something like this, besides the fact that my house has far less brick than this one.

p.s. my sweet husband is not a book-hating jerk. He just prefers his books to be on a screen.

I can't write with people reading over my shoulder.

Prepare yourself for an unorganized blog post.

-It's a new year, so I feel like that should mean that I need to rededicate myself to blogging, but I'm not going to do that because I don't want to let you or me down.

-I really do love writing, but I feel awkward when my husband peeks at what I'm saying while I'm saying it. Or anybody, for that matter. Nobody gets to watch me blog. Ever.
.

-We have lived in this apartment for a week and so far we have the TV unpacked and that's about it. I really hate unpacking.

-Now that I'm not working 60 hours a week, I need friends of the female variety. My mom and my husband's mom are lovely ladies to hang out with, but I need someone my own age to do craft projects with on occasion too. Any takers?

-I'm very excited for a Monday through Friday job. I've never had one of those before. I'll even be home in time to cook dinner and be a housewife. I love cooking dinner (If I ever get the kitchen unpacked...)

-Lindt milk chocolate truffles are amazing. I ate my last one today

-If you try a new hobby, you might find that you enjoy it. I never thought I'd read any Star Wars books, but long drives can turn into learning all about the ways of the Sith and it's actually kind of cool. I'm a little afraid to admit this on the internet.

-Having a husband is buckets of fun, especially if it's my husband. Be jealous.