Weekend

It's been a nice, busy weekend. James went to the temple for the first time yesterday, so Allana and Jenna drove down from UCLA and Davis respectively. It was beautiful to see so many friends all in such a gorgeous place. We went to Islands for lunch afterwards, and everyone talked a mile a minute.

Steve kind of gave notice at The Melting Pot, too, and that feels good for both of us. He has been so unhappy working there, that I don't mind having a little extra income for a bit while he finds something he actually likes. We're of the mind that you should like what you do, or don't do it. Anyway, with MCATs coming up, he has enough on his plate. Just a month left and he will be done with them!

We' re up visiting my family right now. We went to a movie & dinner last night to celebrate my mom's and my birthdays, and today my parents gave me my birthday gift--a sewing machine. I am bubbling over with enthusiasm. I want to sew everything in the world. :-)

Dad and Steve are in the other room watching a movie. Cute to see them getting comfortable with each other. I think Steve and I are really beginning to feel a part of one another's families, and that is wonderful. I love having a bigger family!

Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix

Rating: * * * * (4/5 stars)

So... We saw Harry Potter 5 last night. My rating might be unfair, because I love Harry Potter. Yes, it's true. I am eagerly awaiting next Saturday, when book 7 will arrive on my doorstep. But anyways, I may have liked this movie best of the Potter films thus far. The new director was very creative. There is a lot of plot to tackle from the book in not a lot of time, but I felt (finally) that enough of the important parts were left in (the others cut out a LOT of good information). He also used newspaper clippings to tell a lot of story in a very little time, and I thought that was clever. The cast (except for Harry, who--lets face it--is just not a good actor) was even better this year. They are all shaping up to be pretty good little actors. And Alan Rickman was awesome as Snape--as usual. Also really liked Imelda Stanton as Professor Umbridge. She is the most evil woman, but hides it so well (sometimes). Perfect.

Goal #6

So much for posting 7 times yesterday. But I did go to the gym!!! YES!!! That's a pretty big deal for me. I think my goal is going to be 3 times a week, plus really good stretching every day. I am like the least limber person ever, for the following reasons:

• I do not like to work out, and that is pretty much hand in hand with stretching
• Stretching hurts (duh because I'm not limber)
• I am short, so my feet don't touch the ground, so I sit cross-legged all the time, which means no stretching happens all day

Yep. So stretching, too.

New goal (#6): Blog 5 times a week!

We Can Work It Out

Goal #5: Go to the gym. No, really.

Is there any such thing as good looking gym clothes, I wonder? At least what I have on now is better than what we wore for PE in middle school (small consolation). But yeah, there is no giant cartoon Viking on my shirt right now. So I guess I will be grateful for the small things.

I might post like 7 times today. I'm in a blogging mood.

OFF TO THE GYM!!! NOW!!!

I'm Just a Little Black Raincloud

Today my computer at work was grumpy. I tried to reason with it. I restarted, waited for it's hourglass, ctrl+alt+delete-ed, and nothing would satisfy it. Nothing! My supervisor likes to stand behind me whenever I do anything significant to my computer. Like uninstall. Or reinstall. Anything. He wasn't there today, so instead he sat on the phone with me for 1/2 hour while I uninstalled and reinstalled a program. Yep.

A bird almost flew in my car window at lunch and it scared me to death. I screamed. For real.

Grumpy grumpy grumpy. But at least I'm home now. Reading craft blogs and dreaming about what I will scrapbook or sew... when I learn how to do one of those things... :-)

Is it rain cloud one word or two? Raincloud? Rain cloud? I like one better, so I guess I'll stick with that.

Twenty-Two Goals: Photolog

I am making a list of goals in my head (and on the sidebar of this blog) for year twenty-two. It seems like a big deal to be twenty -two... Somehow 21 sounds still safely closer to childhood than adulthood. But 22 sounds closer to adulthood.

I've decided now that I'm done with school, I should finally start doing all those things I "want to do with my life." Steve is so fun because he's always supportive and excited when I come up with a new project, and sometimes he'll even want to do it with me.

He is a very gifted photographer. Really. His photos are beautiful. I aspire to be like him in so many ways, and I really admire his "eye" for composition. Anyway, here is the first goal I am going to share with you: I want to be able to take beautiful photos. Should be easy, right? Haha.

Here are some I took this weekend, that I think came out well.

Twenty-Two

I had a great 22nd birthday. Here is how it went....

Steve presented me with a beautiful birthday cake at 12:02am, the exact minute I was born.


He had made it entirely by himself, and it was beautiful. Two layers of fluffy vanilla cake with chocolate frosting. It tasted just as good as it looked. And he did all that detail using just a ziploc bag with a little hole cut in the tip!!!

We wanted to take a lot of photos of it before we ate it, because of its prettiness. YAY CAKE!

We got up early (for us) on Saturday morning and went over to the movie theater to watch Ratatouille! It was so cute! And as always with Pixar, brilliant and beautiful. We got lunch at Jack in the Box (that's what I wanted) and then headed over to the mall for some shopping. That wore us out, so we came home and watched a couple of episodes of "Planet Earth" (so neat!) before heading out again for another adventure...



We drove up the 101 in search of fun & food.



We passed the Del Mar Fairgrounds...


...and ended up at Grandview Beach, the beach we went to for our wedding photos. Those are my birthday-toes in the water. The tide was so high that the water was almost touching the cliffs behind us.


Steve started frolicking in the water.


It was so warm that he decided to go for a spontaneous swim.


Only problem with that was that he ended up soaking wet, and with no change of clothes.


He tried to wring out his pantlegs, but that wasn't too successful.


I gave him a kiss, even though it was MY birthday. (So he should have given me one, right?)

We had dinner at this delicious bakery on the 101 called St. Tropez Bakery. We sat outside and munched on sandwiches. There was a lot of good people watching there, and also a live jazz band out in the plaza, so we had a really nice time. We were going to head down to ColdStone, but got sidetracked by how dirty the car was and headed to...


The CAR WASH!!! (We're in it. See the windows?)


It terrified Steve.

After the car wash we did make it over to ColdStone, where I cashed in my coupon for a free "Love It" size (medium) chocolate icecream with gummy bears & brownies mixed in. We shared it. Speaking of, you can sign up for a FREE COLDSTONE BIRTHDAY ICE CREAM at their website!!! YAY!

Also, enjoy this video of us in the car wash:

A New Experiment

Well, we've lived in our little apartment home for almost 10 months now, and I thought it was time for some greenery. I this article in Better Homes & Gardens, and I thought I'd give it a shot. I planted this little maidenhair fern in a hurricane, and it came out really pretty. The gravel at the base is to let the plant drain. Pretty?

Monday

I went to the bookstore the other day and felt like a hungry person in a grocery store. I wanted to buy everything. I'm dying for something good to read. I finally had to force myself to leave because I knew I was going to buy something just for the sake of having a book, and it would have subsequently disappointed me for sure.

Graduation is coming this weekend. I'm excited to see my family, and Steve's family is pulling an all-nighter to drive down after his sister Jessie's graduation the day before. It will be so fun to see them. We get to see my family a lot but the Waltons live a lot further away.

I'm trying to get things in order. Like our whole life. Steve will be starting med school applications after finals, so I'm on the look out for anything that will help him get in. Tips, tricks, scholarship opportunities, everything. I think I'm beginning to understand what being a mom must be like. I'm learning to juggle things, but also to prioritize. I want to do anything I can to support Steve, because I'm so proud of him for working so hard and taking such big steps. He's so brave.

Birthdays Birthdays Birthdays!

Yesterday was both my Dad's and Steve's brother Kevin's birthday. I am still in the process of making my Dad's gift, so I'll post pictures of that later. Steve and I made a music video for Kevin's birthday, using a song he really likes called "Snails" by The Format. So here it is for your enjoyment:

Buns (hehe)

Sooo... what's up with me? Well I recently joined a neat little website called goodreads.com (click there and you can add yourself as my friend and join me!) which is fantastic. You basically review books and see what your friends are reading & etc. Very neat, especially for a bibliophile like myself. Steve got on it too, but so far all he's done is rated all the books he was forced to read in high school as 1 star. He makes me giggle. I love that husband.

What else? I baked!!!! And I mean SUCCESSFULLY!!! Last time I tried to bake something, I messed up the breadmaker and it just baked a pile of ingredients without mixing them. AT ALL. Like so:

So I'm pretty proud that I found a recipe and actually baked these beautiful cinnamon rolls!

Check out the hi-tech cup-turned-rolling-pin I'm using!

Cut the long roll into mini-rolls using floss (you're supposed to!) and then placed them gently into their 8" pan.

Mmmm. Ready to bake. The brown sugar + butter on the bottom of the pan caramelizes deliciously.

They turned out! Steve has a very discriminating tongue, and he ate like three of them the second they came out of the oven, and then five more the next day. So all in all, I felt pretty successful.

Origami Night - Puppies & Birds

So for FHE last week Steve & I had Origami Night. My mom gave us a book of origami stuff and some paper, and, as you can see in the entry below (flower) Steve already knows his origami. So we made these animals while we watched a movie:

Cute birds. Mine is the green one.

Cute dogs. Mine is the orange one trying to snuggle with Steve's rather aloof green one.

Paper Flowers

I came home from work today with a massive headache, and Steve, cute thing that he is, met me at the car and left to do all our grocery shopping for me, because he is an angel. When I got into the apartment, I found this on the table.


I think it's pretty obvious that I have the most adorable husband in the entire world.

I want to blog, but I feel like I have so much to say and not even enough energy to say it... :-)

We went up to LA this weekend for Allana's endowment session, which I was honored to escort her through. I've never been to the LA temple before, but it was neat because it was so different than San Diego. And it's where my parents got married, so that was very special, too. Steve and I think we found the room they were married in (there were four, but we only saw two).

Comments

I fixed my comments so anyone can leave one. And you should because I like feedback. It's fun. :)

Confession #1

I secretly like country music.

There. I said it.

Elephants!

There's something about the air getting warmer that makes me feel better--it's that promise of summer that always got me through the last weeks of school. So the weird thing right now is not having school. Ever again.

It's been strange (but cool) to sometimes have free time... I still kind of don't know what to do when Steve has to study, but I'm figuring it out.

Also, suddenly, I'm on a huge saving kick. (That may be the product of working at a financial planning company). Seriously, though. I'm suddenly really having thoughts--and often--like "I wonder how much we can afford to put in a Roth IRA per month?" and "How much would we have to save per month to have a 10% down payment for a house by the time we're 30?" It's kind of sick. But at least we'll be sort of prepared. I hope. I think that's a big concern for me right now, with grad school approaching for Steve and not knowing where we'll live, and how much it will cost to get through those years.

I'm figuring out other ways to make money, too, besides my job. I'm working full time, still editing for Steve's dad's magazine, and now I'm taking on a small tutoring job for a local family. I think I need to just relax, but I'm not very good at that sometimes.

BUT! I am taking on some hobbies, now, and it's pretty fun. I decided to try some baking, but so far all I've gotten to is brownies and these cupcakes:

They came out really well, by the way. And were iced with chocolate frosting.

I've also started (trying) to get in to scrapbooking. I've bought a lot of supplies, but as of yet I have no pictures to start with. I should really get on that. But I did make this super-cute envelope to send to my friend Kari. It was a business envelope but I embellished it with hand-cut...

PAPER ELEPHANTS!

:-)

Valen Times

Steve & I had a mini-Valentine's day yesterday. He had to work (we now "affectionately" refer to the restaurant as "The Pot") at 4:45, so we didn't do anything big. That turned out to be good, because of course everybody in North County went out to eat last night, and I'm not big on waiting for a table.

Steve gave me my gifts before he went to work--I got home from school and Steve had strung a single ribbon all along the perimeter of the apartment. When the ribbon crossed over something meaningful--a book we read together, our fishbowl, etc.--it had paper hearts taped to it that said things he loved about me or the apartment. It was adorable. So I got to walk through the whole apartment and see all the things that remind Steve of me. It made me so happy, especially because so many of them were just about goofy things we do together, like making "speed brownies"--we jump up, usually during a commercial, and run to the kitchen to make a batch of brownies as fast as we can. We divide up the steps so we are very efficient. We're getting our time down considerably with each round, too.

He also gave me a DVD set I really wanted of a Korean movie called Il Mare. It's the movie 'The Lake House' was based on, but it is way better. Anyway, I was pretty excited about that.

Then Steve went to work and I got to work on a bunch of homework. Ick. But I'm almost done with midterms, and I'm officially done with school for this week, so I'm feeling a lot better. I watched LOST with James, Mike, & Krystle. Steve got home about 10 minutes before that ended.

When we got home he called his mom to say happy Valentine's, and then I gave him my gifts. I bought him a copy of Gray's Anatomy (the actual anatomy book, not a DVD of the show) because he was ogling it in Barnes & Noble. He was really happy about it. I also made him a DVD of all his mission videos, complete with animated intro & menu. I was really proud of how well it turned out, and he kept saying "No way!" as he watched the menu I made, so that was pretty gratifying. Nice to get the effect you're going for.

It was pretty late, but since we didn't get a romantic dinner we cuddled up with some Martinelli's sparkling cider in champagne flutes and watched part of Pride & Prejudice (the A&E one; I'm a purist), so all in all, it was a very cute day. We're going to go to Ruby's for dinner on Friday for our special dinner, so that will be a nice carrot.

Oh midterms

It's kind of hard to think of a way to make midterms seem interesting without whining about them. So I'll just say that I have them like a kindergartener has chickenpox. Simile! (That says similie, not smile).

And just in case that doesn't quite show how gone my brain is:
1. I took two wrong turns driving home yesterday. TWO. And I've been driving there since September.
2. I typed "egg" instead of "fish" when I was texting and then found it hilarious.
3. I almost (accidentally!) walked into a Men's room.

Yep. Sad.

I'll post soon... (maybe)