a dream pet

confession.

i have never been, am not, and will probably never be an animal lover.  to be honest, i've really never even liked animals.  i was never the kid waiting in line to hold the class guinea pig, i feel uncomfortable playing with little kittens, and it's a rare moment for me to find a dog "cute." 

tanner on the other hand loves animals of all shapes and sizes and has always wanted a dog of his own.  I would agree to have pet cats, but I really can't do dogs. {i think it all started the day i was chased around and around in circles by a big dog and a dalmatian in my front yard in iowa until i finally made it inside my house only to turn around and traumatically realize the big dog's face had been partially slammed in the door behind me}  anyway, of course tanner is allergic to cats.  so no cats, no dogs, and fish are too boring.

after watching Food Inc last night, which makes me want to go organic, we were wondering how smart pigs really are {dear google, how smart are pigs?} and came across this strangely adorable little pet called a mini pig or sometimes even a "teacup pig."  kind of weird i know, but really so cute and we both agree this would be the perfect pet for us someday.

how could you deny such a face??

fun to be me

sometimes i feel like i got handed the short straw when it comes to gender.  living with a boy for the past year and a half has made me more aware than ever of the differences between girls and boys.

like how i have to get up many many many minutes earlier to be ready at the exact same time, 

mainly due to how my hair looks like a lifeless animal if i don't blow dry it

or how i go through a million outfits trying to suit my mood

and how on top of that i seem to have a hundred more layers of clothing to put on

and all the other unmentionables, you get the idea.

well recently i find myself looking at a blog - actually a tumbler - that makes me feel like it is oh so fun to be a girl.  call me silly or anti-feminist or whatever, i like it.

fun to wear bows and dresses and eat breakfast in bed, fun to be a mom {though not for me yet}, fun to wear bright colored tights and shoes and lay in the grass, fun to have girlfriends, and fun to be in love.

an abashed blogger

i have been the worst blogger ever...for let's face it, since the time i decided to keep a blog.  well i can't promise that i will get better anytime soon, but i will try because a lot of things happen in my life {in my humble opinion} that are worth publicly recording like....

my amazing trip home to iowa last week

which included laser tag with my family including my mother and my aunt

plus bowling, which happens to be a new "talent" i'm developing

my unusually {bad} luck with airports and getting delayed for hours and hours on end

the extreme excitement i felt to come home to tanner after said amazing vacation

my new adventure of becoming an eyelash lady

how i am a month into school and have attended one of my classes only two times...whoops

my {failed} attempts to bake the seemingly perfect and delicious cookie recipe with rolos hidden inside

the day i helped erica {or should i say ms. neuffer} make decoratively pleading signs for the dirty desks in her classroom with such catchy phrases like "clean me" "me limpia" and "messy"

how this is my last and final semester of my undergraduate career

how i have no idea what i will be doing next year at this time

and how i am surprisingly content with my lack of plans for the future because i am overall happy with everything else.

did i mention that it is wednesday, wednesday evening for that matter, which means we are only two days away from the weekend, oh joy! enjoy the rest of your week!

thanksgiving and the beginning of the holidays

For Thanksgiving we went to Iowa and had a relaxing time with my family.  We ate lots of treats, went out to all my favorite restaurants as usual (does my vacation seem like it revolves entirely around food?), learned how to fold fancy napkins, went thrifting, saw Harry Potter, slept in late, did not do homework, were freezing, and most importantly spent time with family.  Shea was there, which was especially fun, considering this was the first time I had seen her in over two years.  I was happy to start the holiday season off with my family and am looking forward to spending the rest with Tanner's.  We are so lucky to both have such great families.

attempting to take a family photo via self-timer, turned out pretty cute

The only thing between me and Christmas break is two ten page papers, one four page paper, and five finals.  I can do it!! I think...

A Christmas Miracle

Our house is at least a century old and probably older.  We love it, but it definitely has its challenges...for instance how there are no closets, how there is no central heating or ac, how we don't have a dish washer or washing machine, how there is no shelving space, how most of the outlets only have two sockets instead of three, and oh yeah how those outlets seem to appear in random spots so you have millions of cords weaving around the entire house...but all of these seemingly inconveniences make me love this house so much more because they usually become puzzles to solve or creative projects.  Plus, a lot of the things I listed really aren't that big of a deal anyway.  The heating system seems to work pretty well so far, we haven't dealt with the ac issue yet, we do our laundry once a week at Tanner's parents, having to actually wash our dishes by hand has made us cleaner overall, and no closets or shelving space has made us actually sort through all of our random stuff, making our house more organized.  But the outlet problem never ceases to be an annoyance, especially in the kitchen and living room.  I feel like we have SO many extension cords and power strips.  We even have to plug the toaster oven into an extension cord across the kitchen to use it.

Last night we were setting up our Christmas tree and as you can now imagine, I was thinking about which extension cord and outlet we should use - or if we were going to have to buy another extension cord - just to plug in the Christmas tree lights.  That's when the miracle happened.  We moved the armoire we keep in the living room a little to the right to make room for the tree and voila! there was an outlet I've never seen before.  No need for an extension cord at all.  Picture evidence to follow.  

example A: toaster oven connected to two
socket extension cord.

example B: giant power strip connected to
hundreds of cords.

final product/a christmas miracle - no

extension cord needed!

tired&sleepy husband on a snowy sunday

Happy (early) Christmas season to all!

please alway parking here more better

I found this hilarious note as I was "cleaning" today and I meant to blog about this (shhhh) months ago.  For some reason I had left my car at Elizabeth's house overnight, which is only 5 or 6 blocks away from our apartment, and when I woke up the next morning, I realized what I did and had to practically run over to her house to make it to class in time.  When I saw someone had left a note on my car - which usually entails something nasty and rude - I felt annoyed, until I actually read it, after which I couldn't stop laughing.

I guess I did a bad parking job.

Vegas 2010

This past weekend we drove to Vegas for Gus's first birthday party, and I cannot believe it was only one year ago that we drove down on a Saturday morning for a very short 24-hour trip to meet him for the first time.  When did the years start going by so fast?  Maybe I'm getting old.  Anyway, it was an especially fun trip because we got to hang out with Johnny & Heather & Eliza, Vicky & John, Azy's mom - Allison, and of course Chris & Azy & Gus.  And of course, no trip to Vegas is complete without losing a little money to the roulette table and being hypnotized (i.e. attempted to be hypnotized) by a street hypnotist on the strip.  Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of those events, but I did document Gus's party, which was way more fun anyway.

Gus and his birthday cake that he was so nervous to touch

so fun to see Johnny&Heather

Birthday boy and his family

Eliza wearing her dress that she refused
to take off all weekend - so cute

Tanner and Gus

Gus and Eliza both distracted with something over my head

no birthday party is complete
without party hats

And not to steal Gus's thunder - but it is November 11th - which means a happy happy birthday to Vicky!  Check out her birthday post on Carly's blog here.