it's miller time.

Babies!

2012-01-25T13:53:00.000-07:00

I went over to my dear friend Danielle's house last night for a little game night double date, plus, I wanted to see her little one -- a three-month old girl named Belle. I've seen her pictures on Facebook, and for some reason, I look at that kid's perfectly shaped head and think: "I WANT ONE!"

I was a bit nervous to go to their house, because I was worried that Belle's cuteness would leave me wanting nothing more than to have babies myself. I'd like to not cause myself unnecessary heartache, seeing as this may just be the worst time ever to be pining for le babies because of school, work, finances and blah blah blah life plan blah blah blah.

Weellll, that didn't happen.

I walk in and am like "GIVE ME YOUR BABY!" So, naturally, Danielle hands over the little lady, and of course, the adorable little thing starts crying. and CRYING. and CRYING.

And this basically sums up my feelings at the time:

I've unrealistically thought in the past that I was somewhat of a baby whisperer. OK, not really, but I remember my nephew Christian really liking me a lot -- that was FOUR years ago -- and I was the only person that he would stay still for to cut his nails. So, naturally, I think I am a baby guru.

Four years is a long time, and every ounce of baby knowledge is pushed out of the window once little Belle looks up at me with the "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?" eyes. And then she starts crying. And I'm thinking, "How old is this baby? Can she hold her head up? Should I hold her head up? Oh, no, she's still crying. Aaaand, here you can have her back now."

So. Lesson learned. I think I can still wait a few more years for the kids. If I ever forget again, I'll just find the nearest three-month-old and hold it until it cries.

My rant about women who aren't even real

2012-01-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

Maybe I just need to read different sorts of books, but I have noticed a character flaw in several books I've read recently that just irks me.

If I have to read another paragraph about a main female character that is having trouble walking in heels, I may give up reading books forever.

It seems that many of the books I have read lately classify females characters as 'awkward,' 'shy,' 'clumsy,' 'boyish,' etc. The Twilight books are a perfect example of this, and are so over-analyzed, if you don't make this connection with those books, just google it.

I read a free book from Kindle the other day called "Here Have a Husband." It wasn't the worst book I've read, but I definitely wouldn't have paid money for it. It was overall kind of a guilty pleasure read, but the main character, an "independent woman," was stifled by high heels and ball gowns, and felt it awkward to be dressed up and feminine-looking.

Now, I started reading Hunger Games, which ironically enough, I thought the main character was a male for most of the first chapter. She was identically the same, she had this tomboy streak of hunting, so naturally, when she was sent to the Hunger Games, she wobbled around on heels and was taken back by her fancy dress.

Why do authors create these similar female characters -- they are strong, they are independent -- but they lack femininity? Perhaps this makes her more easy to relate to, compared to a woman who can hunt her own meal, and strut around in heels like a boss?

I wouldn't consider myself to overtly feminine, but dammit, I know how to put makeup on like a decent human, and I can wear high heels. I see plenty of other normal women do it every day. Why can't we read more books about actual normal women?

Resolution

2011-12-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

When I look back on 2011, I should remember it as the year I got a new job and started graduate school! Instead, I will remember it as the year we became really poor and I became OK with it.

In the latter half of 2010, I was somewhat angsty about our financial conditions. I was kind of angry, kind of stressed, and kind of feeling trapped in my current situations. So I decided to go back to school, to make myself the most appealing-looking journalism prospect the world has ever seen. And then, I decided to apply for a job at the Tribune and now here I am. Still poor, but at least the ends are meeting, or they aren't so distant from one another.

But, one of the biggest lessons that I learned in 2011 was that there is no sense being stressed over something you can't control. And to not try to control everything. I needed to learn that it was not my job to get Kelly get a job. I needed to learn to give up life's luxuries, and really be OK with that. I needed to learn that even though I took home a paycheck, it doesn't entitle me to anything more than the other person in my family.

But, now, it is nearly 2012, and we are armed with all the right things. I feel good about my employment. I feel good about continuing school. Kelly is licensed and searching for jobs. He is also finishing up school, and earning his bachelor's.

So we made the resolution in 2012 to work on getting out of debt and managing money better. (But student loans/house doesn't count.) Since I hope to God that 2012 will inevitable bring Kelly a higher paying job than I have, we can really aggressively target the credit cards, the little loans we've had to borrow from family, and pay off my car. Hopefully that won't take too long (we don't really have that much debt, but it will be a relieving feeling) and then we can focus on building our savings so that we can buy a second car, (the green machine finally died) add the concrete porch to our yard that we dug out last year, and maybe even go on a vacation.

I can just feel it -- 2012 is going to be a better, brighter year for the Millers!

So you're telling me I eat a lot

2011-12-22T13:29:00.001-07:00

A couple of my coworkers have approached me lately and asked how it is that they always walk past my desk and see me eating all day long, but I manage to stay so slim. How do I do it?

Of course, they believe they are complimenting me on my figure. But, my ears hear, "YOU EAT SO MUCH." Because, I have to be honest, I'm kind of self-conscious about my eating habits. I am not a snacker out of boredom, or anything like that, (at least not at work anyway) I genuinely get hungry every two to three hours. If I eat breakfast before I get on the train, I have to snack before lunch, then eat lunch, then eat an afternoon snack. Then I am super hungry by the time I come home.

And I sit at my desk, eating all this food, and internally wondering, "Does anyone here notice that I eat all the time?"

YUP. THEY DO. And then I'm embarrassed because they called me out for eating constantly, that I just murmer some crap about how I go to the gym and eat a lot of fruits and nuts. Those are all true things, so I guess it's not so bad, but I wonder if the key to me being able to eat so much is that I am in the habit of eating so much. Like, my body finds no need to store all the food I just ate, because I'm just going to eat more again soon! Probably not. I don't share that theory with others. But it's worked for me so far.

Downside of no cable

2011-12-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

Living without cable has made me pretty happy with life, as mentioned here.

But I have come to realize at least one downfall of relying on Kelly's XBox for television entertainment:

I have to rely on an XBox for entertainment. So Kelly wants to play video games? I have to read or clean or do some other kind of crap that isn't watching television. I guess I could watch stuff on my laptop, but 99 percent of the time, I will watch on my laptop in the bed and end up falling asleep not long after the opening credits roll.

Yesterday, Kelly went to go to a friend's house to play video games. I was a little excited about this, because it meant I could continue my Mad Men marathon watching and finish wrapping my Christmas gifts in peace and no snoopy eyes. However, the downfall is that for some non-incriminating reason *cough, cough* we can only stream Netflix (where Mad Men lives!) on the XBox, not the Playstation 3. (There's only so many devices you can have logged into Netflix on one account)

But we do have the HuluPlus, so I can watch that on the PS3.

Conversation last night:

Kelly: "I am going to take my hard drive for the Xbox. So it will still be here, but you can't watch Netflix."

Me: "WHAT."

Kelly: "Yeah, sorry you will have to watch another show on Hulu."

Me: "I don't WANT to watch another show. I want to watch Don Draper have sex with random women and drinking all day long."

Alas, he won out, and I spent the night watching the latest Desperate Housewives. Which the cliffhanger on the last episode (WILL BRE KILL HERSELF??!!) actually made me mildly interested in the show again.

Wait! Is that a light I see?

2011-12-15T15:45:00.001-07:00

Biggest news of our current lives, people.

NO. NO BABIES.

KELLY PASSED HIS NURSING BOARDS!! hgdigh;rieoh]ieojg'w yaycelebrationtime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This not only means that my love can begin working and perhaps we will live above the poverty line (SWEET!) but more importantly, that he can finally work in the field that he has worked the last 5-6 years of his life to get into.

Oh, and I failed to mention this, but he had been working at a local grocery store, where my brother works because things were getting terribly tight around these parts. So, now, he gets the satisfaction of quitting a job stocking shelves so he can go save lives. (Or something like that.)

Last night, after I had gone to bed, Kelly comes into our room:

Kelly: "Jess, wake up. Come here, I want to show you something."
Me: "grumbleygrumblegrumble, NO I AM SLEEPING"
Kelly: "Seriously, I want to show you something, you have to come see."
Me: "FINE. But if this is one of those stupid videos with the scary lady that jumps out at you, I'm going to be pissed."

So I hobble my sleepy self from bed, rub my eyes, and look at the computer screen.

KELLY MILLER -- STATUS -- ACTIVE NURSE

And then I woke up, and literally jumped up and down. And hugged him. Then went back to sleep.

So, I guess, technically, he hasn't got the letter declaring his boards passing. So I could just delete this post eventually. But it would seem damn near impossible for him to be considered an active RN and not pass the boards.

So, drinks are on me tonight (ha! the Internet is a funny place where you can promise things like that, and never actually do it.) But we're celebrating!!

Don't judge me.

2011-11-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

I have been into the "Buy Local" movement for the last several years, particularly when it comes to eating out, but not so much when it comes to shopping for clothes, gifts, etc.

So, while I am glad that there seems to be a push to buy local this holiday season (perhaps due to the whole Occupy movement), I do find that many of those who push the buying local movement are kind of assholes.

I saw several things floating around the Internet this last week about people who choose to participate in Black Friday sales are "disgusting" and "product of American consumerism."

Passing judgment on my shopping habits is about as accurate as me calling you all dirty hippies. Did I wake up at midnight and get most of my holiday shopping done? YES. Did I pepper spray anybody? NO. Did I trample anyone? NO. Did I wait three hours politely behind over 100 people to get some fabric cut? YES.

Let's face it. More often than not, buying local is a luxury. We are not in a position financially where we can go to boutiques for clothes, makeup, jewelry. Yes, there are things that can be bought locally that I bought at a department store on Friday. And I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the choice was either: buy on Black Friday when I can actually afford the product, or not buy it all. Buying locally is never an option on the table, because I can't afford the prices of locally-owned stores.

I'm not hating on the movement. I was appalled last year when the local newspaper's reader's choice for a sandwich shop in Ogden was SUBWAY. (The Italian pick was Olive Garden. I nearly died.) With all the amazing local food in Ogden, those were the people's choices!?

I am all for supporting local businesses. But before you start calling me "disgusting" for trying to provide what I can for the people I like and love, I would think about what sort of judgment you are passing, and if you have the right to do so.

I'm not getting the t-shirt. But I did run a triathlon.

2011-11-28T12:07:00.002-07:00

Remember when I posted about how my motivation for fitness was earning a t-shirt from the WSU gym?

Well, that failed.

Only because I found a much greater motivator:

TRIATHLON TRAINING.

Yep, after discovering that WSU held its very own triathlon, Kelly and I (and our friend Matt) decided to try it out. However, I discovered such race exactly a month before the actual race day. That means a lot of training, really fast.

Most of the training I did was in the pool, which in hindsight, was really stupid, because the swim is only 300 yards. (The run was 5K, the bike was 10K)

I really struggled on the bike portion (if the above photo and facial expression didn't give that away). I honestly am pretty clueless on how to use gears on a bike, and I am fairly certain the gears on my bike weren't operating properly. This equaled a lot of unnecessary work. However, I didn't get off my bike and walk it, like many of those around me did, so even though I was exhausted, I felt strong and proud!

The swimming portion was sort of mayhem because some of the people around me decided to walk through the pool. Which is really stupid. And hard. AND SLOW. I couldn't get in front of them because they took the entire lane, and I can't swim under them, obviously, because they are standing up. It slowed me down quite a bit.

In the end, I took 7th place in my age group/gender, with a finishing time of one hour, 22 minutes. Did I feel like I could do better? Probably. But I am pretty proud of myself for making a fitness goal, training, and accomplishing something I never would have thought possible for myself.

Here's a few more pictures:

FINALLY FINISHED

Triathletes!

Matt, me, Kelly

Kiss and Makeup

2011-11-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

On a random shopping trip several weekends ago, I told Kelly we had to go to Ulta, because I needed to buy some Bare Minerals face powder. At $28 a pop, the makeup is no cheap deal -- however, I go through two a year, so in essence, it's really not so bad.

"$28!?!?" Kelly exclaimed as I attempted to find my perfect shade of pale. "Do you really NEED all this makeup?"

I don't understand why men think buying makeup is a luxury to women, like it's some divine encounter to drop nearly $30 on a product whose sole purpose is to basically look like it's not even there.

I stopped, and asked, "Kelly, do you like this?" *swirly motion to my general face region.* "You like me to look like this? Then stop complaining."

I can't speak for all women, but many I have encountered, myself included, equate buying makeup to buying deodorant. It's kind of a must-have for hygiene, but nothing that we get all giddy buying.

Granted, I guess I could go bare-faced, because it is not a general hygiene requirement to wear makeup, where deodorant is kind of a must-have. But, at some point, women decide their level of "done-up" on their face. For me, it's a little powder, mascara, eyeshadow and liner most days. For others, it's nothing.

But I daresay, if I just decided to stop wearing makeup all together, the one person who would notice most and probably miss it: Kelly.

So just shut up already about it, and hand me the face powder.

The day I invited the Internet to my house.

2011-11-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

So, for most of my adult life, I have had two female friends: my bff Ashley, and my sister. Every other person I generally hang out with are guys, or if there are females present, they are usually dating said guys. So, not so much interacting with the ladies for me.

Which, I can't really figure out why that is. I don't think I come off as too crazy, I'm not super bitchy or gossipy -- I think I would be a pretty good lady friend! I do tend to avoid all types of females that fit those three categories though, so maybe it's me avoiding them.

I digress. Though I love my man friends dearly, I've been kind of yearning for a good ladies night. And, I realized, that I do have female friends, who I've kind of kept at arm's length for whatever reason -- old coworkers, friend's girlfriends/wives, people on the Internet -- including Twitter and bloggy friends.

So I invited them all to my house! Yes, I invited the Internet into my home, and turns out, nobody was crazy or a killer!

While about 17 people RSVPed to come, about 9ish showed up, which is pretty decent for inviting relative strangers to your house. I generally enjoyed myself, and feel like I made better connections with all of the people who were there.

I made some fall beverages, one of which being this random recipe my friend and I made up awhile ago: 99 apples, cinnamon, whiskey, and ginger ale. Yum. However, I've never made a pitcher of these beverages before, and ended up putting waaaay too much whiskey in it. The ginger ale would not cut the taste of the whiskey, and the apple taste was getting diluted out.

I panick, and ask Kelly, "What do I do?!"

He tried it, said it was gross. So I added more 99 Apples, which made it the strongest drink I have ever made.

My first thoughts: I am a creep. I am inviting strangers into my home, and telling them to drink this ridiculously high alcohol, deceivingly tasty beverage. I am basically what your parents warned you about, kids.

Is your dad a baker? 'Cuz you've got some nice buns.

2011-11-08T13:13:00.000-07:00

I have done like three versions of this post, trying to sound the least like a self-absorbed be-otch as possible, and this is my best attempt to share this humorous aspect of life, so bear with me.

I get hit on a lot. Like not daily a lot. But frequently enough where I have a handful of stories. Public transportation is mostly to blame for this, because I am out and about more often, and I have a lot of time to replay interactions with people in my head while taking the hour commute.

Examples:

I walked onto a train one day, and before I could even sit down, someone asked me, "How are you doing?" Politely, I replied, "I'm doing good."
His reply: "You're looking good."
He then proceeded to pepper me with questions from Ogden to Clearfield, including what I was studying in school. When I told him that I was earning my master's he said he just finished his criminology degree.
"Really?" I asked, feigning interest.
"No," he replied, "I've been in prison the last two years."

I have been honked at, and then waved at while walking to my trax stop. I have also been the victim of the all-too-familiar wave-by -- where the guy in the car next to you gets your attention just to try an wave at you. This happens a lot when I drive Kelly's Subaru, and I have no idea why -- are men attracted to large piles of junk?

I have been told that I had beautiful eyes and would look great on camera -- would I be interested in being in this man's YouTube video, he asks, while we are standing in the lobby of a police station?

I was told several weeks ago at a karaoke bar about some creepy observation that my hips looked perfect while I was dancing in the skirt I was wearing. Weird shit.

Maybe this is not your definition of being "hit on," because I don't often get asked out or anything, mostly due to the rock on my left hand, I presume. I do a lot of left hand-waving or drop a lot of "my husband" whenever I feel like a stranger dude is prolonging a conversation and I can't get out.

But, I always wonder, why me? I don't think I am unattractive, but I'm not sure there is anything that great about me that makes guys talk to me over that other chick sitting on the same train as me?

I've come up with a theory: On a scale from zero to smoking hot, I am just right there in the middle. I'm not hideous, but I'm not so hot that I am considered untouchable. Mediocre hotness, you could say. The fact that it is so mediocre, it makes me approachable.

At least, that's my best guess. Because, to be honest with you, I have no idea why else this could be. I put relatively little time to how I look, besides making sure I match and that I don't look like a hot mess. I imagine this kind of weird stuff just happens to everyone, right?

Cable-free

2011-10-27T12:19:00.000-06:00

I have not watched regular cable television for about six months in the comfort of my own home.

Several months ago, our cable and internet bill was nearing $150 a month. This was definitely not going to work on our slim budget where all sorts of other life comforts were being cut. After several months of debate, we finally did it: we bought out of our contract, and cancelled cable.

I am not one of those TV snobs, that are like, "Oh, I don't watch television, because I read and do things in real life that far too interesting to sit and watch that garbage." I LOVE TV. But I had little choice.

So, out went cable, and in came an increase of Netflix and we subscribed to HuluPlus.

There has been one day (ONE DAY!) I have missed cable. The Vikings game was playing on regular television, and Kelly went to his parents to watch the game while I stayed home and cleaned for a dinner party that my grandparents and fellow family members were coming to.

But that's it. I don't miss it at all. If anything, I kind of love that it made me focus my television habits, and invest in certain programs. Gone are the days of channel-surfing, just to end up watching re-runs of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

Especially with the addition of HuluPlus (which allows users to watch not only the current season of a show, but also every season before it) I have actually spent time watching really good television shows, like Breaking Bad, Pushing Daisies, and my current endeavor Mad Men. (Though, in full disclosure, I didn't watch any of those on HuluPlus. I think through them I have watched Desperate Housewives (Judge away), and a smattering of new fall television, like The New Girl, Up All Night, and I even watched an episode or two of Whitney before deciding it was just terrible.)

Oh, and I watched The Real World: Las Vegas, so I did get the dose of reality television my brain somehow enjoys.

I think that lots of people feel this need to have cable television, but can't really point out why. Sure, you like you favorite TV show, but if you can watch it through a different avenue for 1/10 of the price, why are you wasting your money?

Well, it seems that for the first time in my life, I think being poor actually helped me! Hurray!

Committing to be fit(ish)

2011-10-12T10:01:00.000-06:00

There was a time in life when going to the gym was a priority. Those were the days when I got off work at 2, had no homework, and no commute. Now, I am like the rest of the world, and have no idea when I can fit fitness into my crazy life.

But, le body does not care if you are busy. Or that you eat an increased amount of fast food because you run from work to school or whatnot. These hips don't lie. About anything. Even if I were to ask them to.

Now, please understand, I am not calling myself "fat." I don't think I need to lose weight. I have not stepped on a scale in a year. I couldn't give a crap how much I weigh, to be honest with you. But I feel the need to be healthy, to be fit, and have as little love muffin on top of my jeans as possible.

So Kelly and I have begun going to the gym. We go to group fitness classes so that we are on a schedule. One of the secrets to my not-so-great workout regime is that if you go to a class, and get involved in some way with the instructor (either go to a small enough class where they know everyone or talk to them after class or what not) because that way, when you are like, "Damn, it's Monday, I really don't want to go to that 50/50 class" you will instead think "But if I don't go, the instructor will ask where I was last week!" This sounds like entirely stupid motivation, but it works for me. I always end up sticking in the classes the longest when the instructor at least recognizes my face.

So, we have decided to go to the gym 'three times a week' to these three classes. (I don't think we've ever actually had a week where we did all three, but we're trying.) WSU (of course I take my classes on campus, poor college student, holla!) has a "Commit to be Fit" card where if you take like 20+ classes in a semester, you get some stupid t-shirt that says something dumb like "Bringing Sweaty Back."

So of course, WE MUST HAVE THIS TSHIRT.

We have done like 7 classes so far, and on Monday, we were told we would be getting free t-shirts at the end of class. What?? Free shirts?? For what?? Apparently, they are for Homecoming Week, and they are actually really cool. WAY cooler than the t-shirt we are literally sweating and sacrificing for.

Logic kicked in -- If I now have a cool WSU t-shirt, why in the world do I need to keep working out to get a crappier WSU t-shirt?

I asked Kelly if I could be done working out.

He told me no.

Dammit.

The vicious cycle of social media

2011-10-07T09:45:00.000-06:00

Every year, right around October, I want to throw my computers/smart phone out the window because people on social media are so freakin' stupid.

"Ohhhhh, no, it snowed in the mountains, and I'm not ready for snoooooooooooooooooooow."
"IT IS SNOWING RIGHT NOW. IN OCTOBER."
"YAAAAY SNOWBOARDING. snowsnowsnowsnowsnowsnowinoctober!"

PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN UTAH: IT SNOWS IN OCTOBER. IT SNOWS EVERY OCTOBER IN UTAH. THIS IS NORMAL. STOP BITCHING ABOUT IT.

So, I tolerate this (though, I must admit, my social media tolerance is always at an all-time low around this time of year because of people live-tweeting LDS conference. I know this is your faith, but that crap is annoying.)

But, what I really want to do is tweet/status update/generally inform people that they are idiots, and do they not remember last year when this same thing happened? But by doing this, all I am really doing is further supporting the agenda of the weather by talking about it MORE.

Viscous cycle.

I hate being poor-ish.

2011-10-05T10:54:00.000-06:00

Yes, poor-ish. Because I am not legit poor, since I can afford my house payment, and buy groceries, and all that essential crap.

I have given up a lot of things over the last year. I don't have cable. I stopped going to the salon for eyebrow waxes, and only cut my hair 3-4 times a year. I don't go out and don't eat out much, which used to be one of my favorite past times.

But, there is one aspect of being at the poverty level that is just eating at me lately: I can't buy new clothes.

If you are anything like my husband, you will look at my closet and say, "You foolish woman! You have plenty of clothes!"

To which, I respond:

Having clothes and having clothes that fit and are in good condition are two different things. For instance, take the outfit currently on my body as we speak:

Shoes: Flats bought on clearance for less than $10 in 2008. Still wearing them.
Pants: Aeropostale pants that were given to me in high school by my friend. This was in 2006. I've been wearing the same pair of pants, attempting to pass them off as work pants, for the last six years.
Shirt: $6 shirt from Ross, also bought in 2008.

Most of my tank tops have holes in them from when I worked at Sam's Club in 2007 and rubbed up against the membership counter too often. Many of my white or light-colored shirts are sweat-stained.

My clothes are outdated, worn out, and just plain don't fit. I just attempt to disguise this feat because I don't really have any other options.

I think the part that has bothered me most, though, is that my body has not remained the same since these pants were given to me in 2006. I gained my freshman 15 and the newlywed 9. I lost the weight, gained it back. Working on losing it again, but things just don't fall the way that they used to. A juniors low rise jean circa 2007 don't work on these hips that are taking more of a woman shape than a "juniors" shape.

And I have no solution to this, seeing as no jobs are on the horizon for the significant other. Maybe a reality show could solve all of my problems...

Compromise. It's a beautiful thing.

2011-09-30T11:15:00.000-06:00

Don't think because I am about to write about baby names that:

A) I am pregnant.
B) I want to be pregnant.
C) We are trying to be pregnant.

None of these are true, you silly people.

But, let's talk the baby names! For my entire relationship with Kelly, he has been absolutely set on naming his first-born son Kermit. Kermit Miller.

I detest this name, like any natural woman would. (Except for Kelly's mom likes it, which she is no help for the cause of No-Children-Named-Kermit-Past-Year-1954.)

I'm all, "Hey, baby, why don't we just compromise? Kermit could be his middle name? Or even his first name, but we call him by his middle name?"

Kelly's answer: "No."

Then, I'm like, "I will cry every day of my pregnancy. I am literally making a child from within myself and pushing it out of my body. SERIOUSLY!?!"

To which Kelly replies, "I have wanted to name my child this practically my whole life."

And, then I turn into a mushy ball, because if I had a baby name I wanted my whole life, and my significant other squashed it, I'd be a little pissed too. And then I sit and pray for all girl babies so I just don't have to deal with this situation.

BUT THEN THE HEAVENS OPENED AND KELLY GAVE ME A COMPROMISE!

The other day, we were just driving 'round to my parent's house, and Kelly is like, "I think it would be cool to name a boy Keller."

And I was like, "WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!"

And he told me that Keller Kermit Miller would be a cool name. I was like, "YES. YES IT WOULD. LET'S DO THAT."

So that is how the great baby name compromise of 2011 occurred. If anyone steals this name, therefore making Kelly pick Kermit as a first name, I will come and find you and cut you.

Memories

2011-09-12T09:16:00.000-06:00

We were not adults. We were 13-year-old kids, scrambling to finish our German assignments before our teacher called the class to order. We did not know where Iraq was. We probably didn't even know what 'terrorism' was. It may have been the first national event that any kid my age ever really paid attention to. Forget political elections or whatever it was people were talking about in 2001 -- we were kids. We didn't have to worry about that stuff when there was sports to play, notes to pass, and chemistry homework to filter through.

I had heard a buzz about "plane crash" in the halls before my German class had begun. I didn't really digest these buzz words at all, because I needed to hurry to class -- I had to add "t" and "ed" to the end of English words to make them look German so I could get credit on my assignment.

But I'm not sure I ever actually turned that assignment in.

By the time my teacher rushed in, a little later than usual, she informed the class that we were going to listen to the radio for that period. She fumbled with the radio dials, and finally a scratchy, static-laden voice filled the classroom:

"Another plane has hit the second tower."

To a bunch of 13-year-old kids, our first reaction was not, "Terrorism." Our first reaction was, "Idiots." How can two people accidently fly two separate planes into two separate buildings? Our prepubescent minds -- or at least mine -- could not initially wrap around the ideas that not only did people do this on purpose, but that those were not any old airplanes. Those were commercial airplanes, with regular people, who crashed into a building with floors and floors of regular people on them.

Terrorism. This was done on purpose.

We were at a unique age where we simultaneously understood what happened and had no clue what was going on. I don't remember any other classes from that day. If any teacher actually attempted to teach anything, it fell on deaf ears. Some spent their class period updating and explaining to the junior high students what the attack meant.

And the hallways buzzed. That the terrorists were going to hit other important places -- like military bases. We were so close to the Air Force base that their students attended our future high school.

Of course, our preteen minds were filled with the worst kinds of gossip: They are going for the Air Force Base. But, wait, my dad worked on base! Would he be OK? Would our house be OK, since we lived nearby? These kind of talks filled our lunch hour.

The rest of the day was blurry for me. I watched the TV with my parents when I got home from school. I think I never really understood that day what had really happened, and why everyone was so sad. But I was just a kid.

Probably one of the worst things that could happen at your new job.

2011-09-01T09:45:00.000-06:00

While I've been at my new job for about a month, which has gotten me past the deer-in-headlights, wandering-around-the-office stage, I would still consider myself the newbie because no one is fresher than me in any department. (Though if that were the measure of newness, I would have been "new" at my old job for the first year-and-a-half.)

Anyway, so, you want to pretend like you are cool or at least kind of normal for at least like three months at a new job, you know, so the people like you and don't think WTF were they thinking when they hired her? So, I'm trying to do that.

So, yesterday, I come to work like no other day, except for I've got some mean lady cramps. (Sorry if this is oversharing for you, dudes who read this blog. But guess what? GIRLS WHO AREN'T PREGNANT HAVE PERIODS.)

So, I'm like, "Hey, coworker dude, got any Advil?"
And he's like, "No, but here's some aspirin."

And I accept the aspirin because the only thought on my mind is that I would like to rip my uterus out.

About an hour or so later, I'm not feeling so hot. Normal cramp issues, I have gone to the bathroom like five times, and then I just get hit by this wall of nausea. Of course, I am self-conscious and trying to be cool, so I take the longer way to the bathroom because surely everyone's desk who I have passed the last five times have been counting the number of times I have gone to the bathroom and think I am a freak. The whole extended walk to the bathroom, I'm thinking about how throwing up on the floor of my new job at the largest newspaper in the state is probably the most mortifying thing I could think of.

But I didn't do that. I made it to the bathroom, and I'm just chilling in this stall, waiting to see if I throw up or what. Then, the sweating comes. I think I have maybe sweated this much once or twice during a super-intense-workout in high temperatures. I'm just drenched. There is sweat running down my face, down my chest, and I just look like an all-around hot mess. Two things are certain to me at this point:

1. I am not making it through this workday.
2. There is no way in HELL I am standing outside to wait for a TRAX train to take me to the Frontrunner so I can ride a train for an hour to make it home.

Kelly is going to school, so I call my dear, sweet mother, who agrees to drive the 40 minutes or whatever to come pick up her daughter from her job in stupid Salt Lake City.

So I've got 40 minute to wait until this can occur. I am sitting in that stall still, and I ended up taking off the skirt I was wearing because it was high-waisted and made of the most unbreathable fabric known to man. So, there I am, sweaty and pantsless when they motion sensor lights go out. So I wave my hands in the air. They don't turn on. So I fumble to put my skirt back on in pitch black, to leave the stupid stall, to turn the light back on.

This isn't going to work.

I recalled from my first-day tour of the joint that they have this wellness room on the floor below us where people can go when, well, they don't feel well. I decide to break out of the bathroom, mumble some stuff to my editor about leaving for the day, and book it for the wellness room.

Well, I go to the sixth floor, and can't find the damn room. I do, however, find a little private bathroom with a ton of air conditioning and beautiful, glorious tile. I prop up my backpack (I had school that night too) and lay on the floor, allowing my sticky limbs to be cooled by the tan tiles.

After holing myself in there for about 20 minutes, I begin to think that the woman whose office is in front of this bathroom is probably going to be really pissed that this dumb girl from the 7th floor is all up in her bathroom. So I leave, and ask this woman, "Yo. Where is the wellness room?!"

She points me in the right direction, and for the last 20 minutes or so, I rest in the room and wait for my mom to come. (I should point out, I think any room people call a wellness room should probably have a toilet in it. I would say 80 percent of the symptoms experienced that would require a wellness room would appreciate the availability of a toilet.)

So, that was my pathetic day. I think the aspirin made my stomach angry and attack the rest of my body. I really have no other explanation other than that. My mother picked me up, I never threw up, and I just slept until class that night.

My hell, I am getting so old.

2011-08-26T09:36:00.000-06:00

I know! I am only 23! Prime of my life and crap like that!

But, Good Lord, I have been feeling so old lately.

Usually, when I do a strenuous activity the day before -- spend the day in the sun, go to a concert, etc, etc -- I am exhausted when I get home, but I go to sleep and feel as normal as ever when I wake up. The sleep cures the body of whatever beating up I did to it the day before. The only time I have had residual pains the day after is if I happened to have one too many cocktails or something.

But, lately, I have just felt wrecked the day after doing a lot of activity. I spent the day up at Pineview at the beginning of the summer, followed by a BBQ. Lots of sun, lots of eating, lots of activity. I felt so tired and groggy the next day at work, it was unreal. How could I feel this crappy following a normal day of activeness?

Then, last night, Kelly and I went to the Lupe Fiasco concert that was free at a park in SLC. Music was good. The crowd was awful. So much sweat. So much pushing. So much stepping-of-toes. So much chaos. Today, I feel exhausted -- This body isn't what it used to be!

Go ahead, you can tell me: It's all downhill from here.

(Speaking of things going downhill, I had the most terrible fashion moment the other day. I found a pair of shorts on clearance for $5 at TJ Maxx. I bought them because they looked freakin' comfortable and, not going to lie, because they had an elastic waistband. I show Kelly the new shorts, and say, "I bought these because the waist band is elastic!"

And poor Kelly just gives me this look that clearly reads, "REALLY?!"

My response: "Yeah, really. I bought elastic-waist shorts. It's all going downhill from here. Get used to it.")

my husband, the sweetheart sarcasm, sarcasm, sarcasm

2011-08-15T17:00:00.000-06:00

Before I tell you about this conversation, I should tell you that I someone either got bit by a bug on my eyelid or am having some adverse side affects to a bug bite that I got over the weekend. My eyelid is all puffy and swollen, and well, here just look at this picture:

It's nothing life-altering bad, but you can tell that the eye on the left looks a little lazy, puffy, whatever compared to the other eye. I've had this now for two days.

So, my dear, sweet husband calls me today:

Kelly: Hey, do you want to go to a dinner BBQ at my work today at 6:30?

Me: Sure! (thinking to self: Hooray no cooking for me!) That is if you want to go?

*This is also a good time to note that we have never attended a work function and I have never met any of his coworkers.*

Kelly: Wellll, how does your eye look? Is it still puffy? Do you look ugly?

Me: *complete and utter silence*

Kelly: I'm just kidding.

Me: *complete and utter silence.*

So there you have it. I am losing my value as trophy wife because of one little allergic reaction.

My partner, Kelly

2011-08-12T15:36:00.000-06:00

A while ago, while still working at the Standard-Examiner, I was chatting it up with my coworkers and mentioned something about Kelly. But I used the phrase, 'my husband.'

The coworker asked me why I never used my husband's name. Did my husband even HAVE A NAME?

And, I am fully aware and mostly intentional about not using Kelly's name and instead referring to 'my husband.' Because most of the time, acquaintance-type people may not recall or have any knowledge that is my husband's name. And then, they are like, "Who is Kelly? Is she one of your friends?" And I'm all, "Nah, that's my husband's name." And then it gets awkward.

I tell this to my coworker. And his response:

"Just start introducing him as 'your partner.'"

GENIUS.

So, next conversation I have with my new coworkers will go as such: "What did I do this weekend? Well, my partner Kelly and I had a great weekend camping together!"

what I like to see

2011-08-05T12:25:00.000-06:00

This, my friends, is the first time I ever earned a 4.0 in college. Took me all the way to graduate school to do it, but IT HAPPENED.

my baby takes the morning train

2011-08-03T17:00:00.000-06:00

I have been playing the part of commuter girl this past two weeks as my new employment has taken me out of my little town into the big city.

And it's been a bit of an adjustment.

At my old job, I woke up at 6 a.m., hauled my sleepy ass to work, but was rewarded with an early exit at 2 p.m. I drove my car, because I worked 10 minutes away, and I needed it because I was a crime reporter.

Now I am a webmaster/database coordinator/reporter and I don't need a car every day. And my work is about an hour away in traffic. So I now take a train to work every morning, and hop off that train and get on a TRAX line that drops me off mere feet away from our ninth floor office. (Whoa, is it ever beautiful to work in a ninth floor office in downtown Salt Lake City ... our patio/veranda has the best view.)

I come in at 9 and leave at 5, just like normal people in the world.

I have already worked out the few immediate kinks -- such as I must carry a snack to eat on the way home or else I will be a hot, hungry, tired beotch when I get home.

But I was presented with an all-new situation yesterday: The Utah Transit Authority added new rails. New rails = schedule changes. Schedule changes = terrible.

It is not the smartest idea, but it had worked for me so far: whenever I got off of the train, I would just follow the mass of people, figuring that they were most likely set for the downtown area just like me.

I mindnumbingly, unawaredly hopped on this fancy new TRAX line. I was in my own little world, listening to Regina Spektor and sipping my homemade iced coffee when some guy asks another dude, "Is this the University Line?"

"No man, this goes to West Valley."

I panic. What TRAX line am I even supposed to be on? I just jump on random lines with masses of people, I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE I AM SUPPOSED TO BE. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE WEST VALLEY IS.

And of course, even though it is not true at all, I feel like everyone would stare at me if I hurriedly stood up, looked at the map 10 feet from me, and either sprinted to the other line or sat back down. So I use my smart phone powers, and look it up online. And, of course, because it is the first day that new lines are open, the map isn't updated.

So I jumped off the train. I hurriedly looked at the map posted, and just gave up and got on the Sandy line. Is this the one I was supposed to be on? Hell if I know.

I was sweaty and nervous and thinking of an exit plan in case the TRAX started heading south. My heart skipped a beat when the "DING" indicating that we were about to start moving went off.

And Thank God, that train went north. And I still got to work, even on time.

I learned later that day that is actually impossible for me to get on the wrong train from either destination. The nice people with the Utah Transit Authority stationed people out at the stops to help stupid people like me figure out WTF they are doing. So I asked the nice man, who told me both TRAX go downtown to my stop and take me back to the train station.

So far, being commuter girl sucks. I have no idea where I am half of the time if I venture out of my office and TRAX locations. But I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

The time my dog actually, really almost died (Part Three: FINALE!)

2011-08-03T12:47:00.001-06:00

MONDAY: SALT LAKE CITY

So we drive to Salt Lake City with the dumb dog in tow to get a $600-800 endoscopy performed to hopefully remove the fish hook swimming in my pup's insides. When we arrive, they quickly escort us to a small room, where we are told that they will take my sweet dog, make him throw up (I had fed him that morning, which apparently was no bueno for endoscopy procedures) and then perform the scope.

Oh, and there is a slight chance that he could throw up the hook, so they are going to watch for that too.

I bunkered down in that room, expecting a several hour procedure. Of course, this being a holiday weekend (Go Mormon Pioneer Holiday!) I procrastinated doing my homework until this day because I didn't have to work or really do anything. So I pulled out my mother-in-law's laptop, and set up shop to type away my final reflection paper as part of my semester-long project.

I wasn't even connected to the internet before a nurse came in with a tongue depressor in her hand that was covered on the tip by a light brown goo. In the middle of this light brown goo: A FISHHOOK!!!!!

"Looks like he threw it up," she exclaimed as she showed me the vomit-laden piece of metal.

The biggest wave of relief swept over me. Not only is my dog NOT going to die, I don't have to pay for an endoscopy. (Though the trip itself cost $140, but whatevs.)

They brought Luigi back into the room just minutes after he had been given the powerful, vomit-inducing morphine. He looked drunk. Or hungover. His eyes were kind of glazed over, and he just laid at my feet while we counted down the minutes until we could leave the clinic without fear of him throwing up again in my mother-in-law's Mini Cooper.

So that's the story. Everything turned out a-ok, though the situation did rape us financially, and we have been living off whatever we can find in the house and bumming off of other people for food/fun/cash. Oh well, at least my puppy love is safe!

Luigi's xray

The time my dog actually, really almost died (Part Two)

2011-07-29T17:30:00.000-06:00

So, as I left you, Luigi is alive and well, with a fish hook still swimming in his belly.

SUNDAY

Nothing has really changed. The dog is acting normal -- probably more happy than usual because we fed him three times a day to try to give him as much padding as possible for pushing out fish hooks, and I let him sleep at the foot of my bed, since I was unsure if he was going to die, I wanted to cherish my last nights with that stupid dog.

Every time this dog poops -- which was a lot, because of the excessive feeding -- one of us had to go outside with a grocery bag tied around our hand and gingerly smash and feel his bowel movement for a fish hook.

No dice. I start to get worried when his abdomen starts getting huge, and I don't remember him pooping in recent history. I never thought my mood would be so affected by my dog's bowel movements. Or lack thereof. I was worried that the fish hook somehow had lodged itself into his intestines, and caused a back up. Of course, every end situation in my mind concludes with his death, so I just imagine him dying from his whole body being filled with backed up feces. (That can really happen, I googled it.)

MONDAY

I finally decide the dog needs to go back to the vet, because there is no signs of that fish hook coming out of there. Off to the vet I go, only to discover ($190 later) that, in fact, the fish hook HAS NOT MOVED. At all. It's still floating around in Luigi's tummy.

This is actually awesome because it means my dog's insides are intact and there is a chance that a doctor in Salt Lake City will be able to remove it with a $700 endoscopy.

So, now the decision of doing nothing had basically been ripped off the table by the new vet. Our choice: $700 endoscopy or $2,000 surgery. Surgery is guaranteed removal ... endoscopy is not.

I talked to Kelly about it, and we decided endoscopy was the way to go. The kicker was: Kelly told me if the endoscopy doesn't work, that's it. No surgery. We've reached our max of "We will pay this much to save our pet" and we would either have to hope it dissolves/passes or he will be put down/die of excruciating internal bleeding.

With the endoscopy choice solidified in my head, my mother-in-law, Luigi, and I headed to Salt Lake City with the hopes of a swift, accurate, successful endoscopy procedure.

The time my dog actually, really almost died (Part One)

2011-07-27T17:30:00.000-06:00

I have so much good things to share! I started my new job at the Salt Lake Tribune yesterday, so I am full of excitement. But, first, I have to tell you about my weekend. And I will tell it in parts, because it was literally an entire weekend endeavor.

SATURDAY

So I went up to Monte Cristo with my parents and my nephew just over night to get my camp on. I opted to head out a little early Saturday so I could get back to town (and cell phone reception) and talk with some of my lady friends about my best friend's bachelorette party later that evening.

The second I got into cell reception, my phone just blew up. The Nintendo-themed sound (Mario going down the tunnel, to be specific) resounded one after another, after another. I looked at my phone: FIVE VOICEMAILS? Good God, I have been gone for less than 24 hours, and I have five voicemails.

They were all from Kelly. The first seemed calm, joking, almost even that he was kidding:

"Hey Jess, Soooooooo, Luigi swallowed a fish hook."

He mumbled something about shrimp, and his dad -- they were out fishing at Willard Bay -- and said he'd keep me updated.

The second message was more somber:

"We took him to the emergency vet. It's cost over $200 so far. We can either do emergency surgery -- long pause -- which would be $2,000 or see if he passes it. It could rip his intestines on the way out and he could die. I'll keep in touch."

My mind was racing. All of these events had unfolded the night before, while I was blissfully roasting a hotdog with my nephew. I had only listened to two messages, what could the other three possibly say?!

I instantly thought of the worst. Either way, it was just the worst situation. Get the surgery, and we are financially screwed, seeing as we have no savings account because Kelly's unemployment caused us to use it to pay bills. Don't get the surgery, and my dog -- the first animal that I ever owned and honestly, truly adored and loved -- may die.

And I had no say in this situation. All I could do was listen to my husband's stressed, tired voice -- listen to a story unfold via voicemail messages.

The third message told me that he decided to see if the hook would pass. Luigi is at home, and we will see what happens.

But there were still more messages.

This is the point where I basically lost it. The tears flowed, as I tried to summon the guts to listen to the next message, which I thought certainly was telling me that Luigi tried to pass the hook, failed, and had died overnight.

Luckily, it was just Kelly saying he was leaving to go to work and Luigi was home and that he needed to be watched.

And that was all I knew. (The last message was from my best friend asking to go shopping, which was also a relief to hear her voice and not Kelly's, for once)

I speed as fast as I legally could with bleary eyes, trying to get home to my dog and see how he was doing. How long does it take for a dog to pass things like fish hooks anyways? Would I go home to find my dog lying on the floor, suffering while a sharp object ripped into his intestines?

I took a deep breath, and turned the knob on my olive green door. I heard a jingle of dog tags, and saw my sweet chocolate lab run to greet me. He was alive! He was moving! He seemed so happy!

But, I still knew there was a half-inch fish hook still rumbling around in this dog's belly.

love for my love handles

2011-07-22T08:13:00.000-06:00

So I joined this website, Pinterest, which is basically an awesome way to blogstalk awesome things/fill boring moments in life. And, of course, Pinterest is full of 99 percent women, and many women are ridiculously stupid. I wade through dumb sayings and other lame things to find cool stuff.

But the other day, I saw a [photoshopped] picture of some skinny chick with the words, "Still want that bag of chips over this? That's pathetic."

And, I was like, "BITCH. YES I DO WANT THOSE BAG OF CHIPS."

Honestly, it was disturbing to me that people actually think like that. Given the choice to starve for a bangin' body or enjoy life and carry a little junk in the trunk, I CHOOSE LIFE. Every freakin' time.

I take care of my body. I exercise (when I'm not in school), I eat healthy, but if I go to a barbecue and someone offers me a brat and some mayonnaise-laden pasta salad -- I'm all over that.

It's not like I'm not occasionally self-conscious about my body. I carry all my junk in the trunk and love handle area. Most of the time, that looks pretty decent under clothes. But, occasionally, skinny jeans cause muffin tops, and there is always that first self-conscious moment when you take a swimsuit cover-up off.

But that's it for me. Just a moment. I'm not going to make myself feel bad for the 70 percent healthy lifestyle I live and the 30 percent indulges of beer with friends, greasy BBQ cookouts, or whatever unhealthy choices I am bound to make.

I'm showing love for my love handles!

Thank you Ogden, for the best/worst conversation ever.

2011-07-15T13:26:00.000-06:00

So, today, I was soaking up all downtown Ogden had to offer me. I was assigned a story at the city building, and went over a few minutes early to eat some street tacos and revel in my little city before I make my move to the big old Salt Lake City. (Job move, not real-life move)

I went to my story, and was walking to go to my car. Random dude, who didn't look entirely homeless but maybe a step or two away from homeless, approaches me and conversation ensues:

Random Dude: Hey, ma!
Me: Um, hello. *why I am always polite and don't just ignore these dudes and walk away, I have no idea.*
RD: Are you a mother?
Me: Um, no.
RD: So you have no kids?
Me: Nope.
RD: That has to hurt a lot, you know giving birth.

What the hell?

What every stereotypical journalist needs to know

2011-07-14T11:17:00.000-06:00

I am a stereotype.

I am a journalist. I like coffee. I am poor.

It's like the trifecta of today's journalism. There might be some nods to excessive drinking or chain smoking, but I think those are going out of stereotypical style as typewriters and fedora hats.

ANYHOW, I found the best recipe that made my little journalist heart oh so happy.

Take a half pound of ground coffee. Any kind. I used a package of super expensive coffee from Jamaica that everyone drinks over there. (Or at least that's what they give the tourists staying in resorts.)

So, yeah, take that coffee, put it in a stock pot, or any other large bowl that will hold a gallon of water. Then put in a gallon of water. Let this sit overnight.

Then, take some cheese cloth, and have your husband hold it over a gallon pitcher. (Or get a mesh strainer, but the whole point of this is that you are poor, so a significant other works just as well.) Pour the coffee over the cheese cloth, separating the grounds from the coffee. Refrigerate this coffee concoction.

NOW, whenever you want to drink iced coffee -- which will be every day since its hot and difficult to work efficiently when you know you only have to work at your job for one more week -- you take a cup full of ice, fill it 2/3 of the way with coffee. Then fill the other 1/3 with milk. (I used 1 percent, because, again, emphasis here is to stay cheap so I am not going to go out and buy half and half or whole milk or whatever.) Then add a spoonful of sugar.

And I swear this tastes exactly like iced coffee that you would pay $4-5 for at a coffee shop. It's even like $2-3 at the BK and McDonald's.

My cost?

Well, again, I used random coffee I found in my house that was from Jamaica. They were bought at a better time in life when I had disposable income so it was like $10. But I'm pretty sure you can buy bulk coffee in a billion flavors at WinCo for like $5 a pound.

So, essentially, you can make an entire gallon of iced coffee for the price of one fluffy drink at a coffee shop. And, you just have the gallon of coffee sitting in your fridge, so it's really easy to make. I even made one today at 6 a.m. That's telling you something. I don't even make myself breakfast.

So that's that. Cheap journalists rejoice everywhere!

When hippie magic failed me

2011-07-11T07:56:00.000-06:00

So apparently I'm into all this hippie, save-the-world magic crap. As detailed in the my earlier postings of pouring boiling water on crap to make it die, and spraying my plants with pepper/onion spray. (And I will tell you, the onion hippie spray totally works! And the best part is, the produce doesn't taste peppery at all either. I just pulled some spinach from my garden yesterday.)

Over the weekend, I felt the need to do a project. I feel as if I have an expiration date of productivity during the week because I am going to start commuting to work soon and will not have abnormal 6 am to 2 pm hours.*

I had the great idea of staining the concrete on my front porch/sidewalk area. This does not sound difficult. Was it? I couldn't tell you, because I haven't even started staining it yet.

Why?

80-freakin-years of paint needs to be removed. Seriously, former generations, what the hell were you thinking? Don't paint your front stoop! Never! Never does it ever look good. Especially the red color I discovered three layers below the tan surface paint.

I should note, the paint wasn't solidly on the porch, it was more like cracked and peeling from most of the side and had been worn down on the steps. Most of the removal was to be done on the sides and where the door opens. So it wasn't like paint removal suicide.

Of course, when I go to Lowe's to get some paint stripper, I see some hippie variety. Better for the environment, it read. (Not that anything that is used to strip paint is probably good for the environment.) So I get the stupid crap that is going to save the world and go home.

I use the entire container in three tries on probably five square feet of coverage.

None of this is effective.

Now, my front porch looks absolutely awful because I scraped off the unassuming tan layer, the decent-looking brown paint layer, and am now working on the ugliest red color I have ever seen.

So I went to Wal-mart yesterday (don't judge me. It was the only place I could think where I could find shaving gel and paint stripper.) and bought some heavy-duty, ruin the environment paint stripper.

Has this been effective?

I have no idea. I can't get the stupid container open. Kelly was unsuccessful yesterday too. But his task today is to get that damn tin of death fumes open.

Though my weekend project has become my weeklong project, it's ok. I'm in no hurry now to get the paint stripped because the past several days have been 90 degree weather ended by a huge downpour. So I have to wait until at least Wednesday to stain anyhow.

*Just realized I never blogged that I got a new job. Well...um, I did. I start work at the Salt Lake Tribune in two weeks!

hippie magic

2011-07-07T08:10:00.000-06:00

I should begin this by saying that my use of hippie methodology is not because I want to save the world and the environment. Maybe it should be, but that is so far down on the list, there are plenty of things that trump it.

Such as:
Lazyness.
Cost effectiveness.

These two reasons led me to the Internet, searching for an "all-natural" way to cure my garden of little bugs eating the leaves of my broccoli, cabbage, and spinach plants. Most people searching for such hippie magic usually want to save the world. I was just too lazy to go to Home Depot and buy pesticide, and to poor to do so as well.

So I found "household" herbal-like remedies to try to eradicate my bug problem. I mixed about half a jar of red pepper flakes, an onion, green onions, and several cloves of garlic with two cups of water. I then let this miracle juice sit outside in 100 degree weather for a day and a half. I then drained the liquid out of the jar, and put it into a spray bottle, and squirted some dish soap in it, then sprayed it on the leaves of my entire veggie garden and herb garden.

Wah-lah. Hippie magic herbal remedies. I sprayed it on all my plants, and I am pleased to report that I didn't kill any of my plants, and the new leaves that have been sprouting have no holes left my bug bites in them. Hurray!

Between this, the fact that I have been composting for the last almost two years, and that Kelly has resorted to killing our weeds by pouring boiling water on them (that really works, I swear) I think we have reached a new level of hippie organic green-ness.

Do we get like a medal, or award for that?

literally almost died, guys.

2011-06-23T08:00:00.000-06:00

So last night I went to an Ogden Raptor's game (our sweet minor league baseball team) because I was given some free general admission tickets at work earlier that day.

So me, the man, and our two of our friends were all spread out on a quilt sitting next to right field on a gorgeous early summer night. Unfortunately because of our location, the sun was blinding and it was nearly impossible to watch the game, much less see where the tiny little white ball was traveling.

But, oh, life was good. I had my shoes kicked off, was soaking in the sun, and sipping on some local home brew, just reveling in the summer air when I heard a yell.

"Look out!"

Yes, I know that foul balls will frequently come in the area. We are at a baseball game. But I had turned my head away from the field to give my tired eyes a break and when a foul ball ricocheted off the metal bench in front of us, we were less than prepared.

The ball managed to zoom past all three of my friends, only sacrificing a stranger's soda in the process.

Then I felt the ball flying past my head. It went quickly, and was just centimeters from the side of my skull. The ball rushed past and knocked the small, round dangly earring I was wearing, causing the earring to swing violently back and forward.

It was that close. The ball grazed my accessories, but never touched my skin. It ended up bouncing onto a nearby blanket where a young kid excitedly held the ball for the rest of the game.

My heart was still pounding as I mopped up the soda that had sprayed all over my bare legs with a Wet One that some well-prepared mom brought to the game.

Funny thing is, such a close call, and nothing of ours was spilled as we went to duck and avoid the zooming ball. Not one ounce of beer.

No harm, no foul, right?

Superstar

2011-06-17T10:20:00.000-06:00

One great thing about working at a smaller newspaper is that I basically can do whatever I want. Well, not like whatever I want. But if I want to post something on a social network site, I can. If I want to make a video, write a blog, do all that extra stuff, I can basically do anything my little heart desires within the budget (of zero dollars).

So the other day, the photographer was getting some video of a levee break I was flooding (It's FLOODPOCOLYPSE 'round these parts, people.) and I came up with the genius idea of going in front of the camera to explain the situation.

So I did. AWKWARDLY.*

And I am a print journalist for a reason. But, who knows, this could be the start of a lustrous TV career. No? OK, fine, I'll get back behind my computer screen and continue my life being a writer monkey for the good of all mankind.

*Sorry if you've seen this pimped out extraordinarily on my Facebook or Twitter accounts. I'm not going to lie, this post is like 60 percent for my mom because I told her about this, and I'm betting she never looked it up on the Standard's website, and I want her to see it. And be proud of her awkward little daughter.

the blog

2011-06-02T11:14:00.001-06:00

So I am learning about lots of new online presentation programs in one of my grad school classes. One is www.wordle.net. On this website, you can enter in a blog or even just a huge paragraph of text and it makes a pretty word cloud with your most-used words largest.

Interesting that my top few are 'cheese,' 'people,' 'taco,' and 'Luigi.' I think my entire post dedicated to the nasty cheese on Taco Bell tacos have tipped the scale to the allusion that I constantly talk about cheese and tacos. Or maybe I really do love cheese and tacos.

Guys, I'm trying to be cool here.

2011-05-24T13:14:00.000-06:00

This picture is particularly blogworthy for two reasons:

1. I actually took a semi-permanent step to become trendy! (Those are those hair feather extensions I talked about in this post)
2. I actually went to a salon, paid someone who was not either in school for hair or worked at a Great Clips to cut my hair.

Monumental, people.

(I realized yesterday I was dressed like an absolute hipster, and for this I apologize. Between the knock-off Ray Bans, the new bangs, the feather hair, a peasant top, and skinny jeans, I just screamed "I'm cooler than you!")

My dog has every reason to hate me

2011-05-18T07:51:00.000-06:00

I never thought I'd be one of those people who were crazy about their animals. I freakin' love that dog. So much that I let that huge thing into our bed this morning at 4 am this morning after Kelly forgot to put him in his kennel last night. This might be normal for many people, but I had a strict NO DOGS IN MY BED rule when we first got Luigi.

But he's so cute and cuddly and I LOVE HIM.*

But, guys, I think I realized last night that I scary-love my dog. I was thumbing through pictures on my phone last night and realized that I am one of those people who make my dog wear weird shit so I can take pictures of him. Yeah, I'm like those crazy women who put wigs on their cats.**

Observe:

This one was actually on our Christmas card. True.

This isn't me dressing him in anything, but he still has that look in his eyes, like "WTF ARE YOU DOING TO ME!?"

Injury resulting from stupidity. Mainly running in front of snowboarders.

Super Luigi!

Santa Luigi!

Cold Luigi!

Tortured in a 'dog spa' Luigi!

Of course I made my dog carry his own food while camping.

DJ Luigi!

Luigi keeping it cool!

The best part about all of this pictures is he has the same face, like he's saying, "Woman, why are you doing this to me?"

Please feel free to judge me now.

*It should be noted, mostly for parents' sake so they don't think I'm a big dirtbag, that my dog NEVER sleeps under my sheets. That's just gross.

**Yes, this was noted just for you, Di, You crazy cat woman. :)

killin' em with kindness

2011-05-06T12:57:00.000-06:00

So, earlier today, I was in full-on writer frenzy working on an article for this weekend about community members involved in the city's gang unit. When I came up for air, and a break, I thought a good trip to Taco Bell was in order.

For some unknown reason, whenever I am in extreme writer-girl mode, or getting back from breaking news events, I always eat Taco Bell or a hamburger. Maybe I just feel like I should eat fast because I have so much stuff to do. Who knows. I digress.

So I am waiting at the drive-thru for-freakin'-ever. I order a double decker taco, emphasizing to the extreme that I need this taco to be without their crappy new cheese sauce they rolled out. The "cheese" is disgusting, and is a fallacy to real cheese. (OK, Taco Bell is a fallacy to real Mexican food, but whatevs)

I know already before I even pull up that they got my order wrong. I pull ahead, and peek inside the soft taco goodness to discover the CHEESE SAUCE OF DEATH. This cheese is so detestable to me, it is worth parking my car, getting out, and going inside the Taco Bell to demand a new cheeseless taco! (Yes, and this is on a day of writer frenzy -- I seriously hate that cheese)

So, I go in, and I'm all, "This is wrong, I paid twice as much for cheeseless Double Decker, specifically said the words DON'T PUT CHEESE IN THIS, and there's cheese in it." Not rude at all, mind you.

I am pretty sure I was apologized to nervously at least 7 times in the time it took to dollop together another taco. Every time, I said, "Oh, it's fine, no worries." "Not a problem." All the while smiling and, honestly, not really caring so much, because who cares to get worked up over a taco?

The dude who messed up my order finally surfaced and asked me how my day was going. Fine, but busy, I told him. He confessed it was his first day taking orders, and he is so sorry he messed mine up. I said, again, it's no problem at all, and then left with cheese-less Double Decker goodness.

Their reaction to my taco plea makes me think that people must freak out normally when orders are wrong. Why else would they have such a reaction to my objection to the presence of cheese sauce? To those people who are the my-food-is-wrong-freaker-outters, stop it. It's a taco, for God's sake. Give these kids a break.

Me: 1 Grad School: 1

2011-05-05T12:28:00.000-06:00

I have mentally put myself into school mode and spent the last two nights feverishly reading a book that we were assigned to read and took a test on AP Style. For people who don't know, AP Style basically dictates how reporter-y type people and other communication/media types conduct their writings. Like telling you that you should write 7 p.m. instead of 7:00 PM. Basically, nit-picky crap that normal people would never notice but absolutely kills a journalist if they ever see it in a print.

So, basically, this Stylebook dictates my life.

Score so far:
Me: 1
Grad School : 1

I rocked at reading "Never Eat Alone," this book that was assigned for discussion on Saturday. My professor even said the words "Don't worry about finishing it" but I did anyways. Hurray for me! I finished not because it was good or interesting (I actually kind of hated the book) but because I am recommitted to college and not doing stuff half-ass like I did in my undergrad because I was so burnt out on school. So, I get a point for that.

But, then we had to a take a 40-question quiz on AP Style, the dictator of my life. I thought, "I'm a freakin' journalist, I got this in the bag." Turns out, I did not, in fact, have anything in the bag. I didn't get a high enough score to pass an OPEN BOOK QUIZ. WTF?! I am secretly hoping my classmates equally fail this as to not humiliate my journalist-y self. (OK, I hope they do well. I guess.)

Lucky for me, my professor said we should take the quiz once and if we don't pass, AKA get above 80 percent, to take it again next week. So YAY for second chances. I have learned my lesson, and I promise I will pay closer attention/study more/read the Stylebook entries closer. Grad school, this means you also get a point in the war to master-hood.

No, I don't want to donate to charity because I am the worst person on the planet.

2011-04-28T12:37:00.000-06:00

You know what just really grinds my gears?

Stupid companies that make their employees ask people if they want to donate to charity while customers are checking out.

These conversations go two ways:

Cashier: That will be (total). Would you like to donate a dollar to support limbless children?
Me: Uhhhhh, Yeah. **Feeling totally duped and knowing that bigwigs do this to make people like me feel like assholes if they don't donate a mere dollar to help save children.**

Cashier: That will be (total). Would like to donate a dollar to help save baby seals and baby people?
Me: NO. NO I DO NOT WANT TO. **Feeling like an asshole who won't even donate a mere dollar to help save children. And baby seals!**

When places like Walmart boast about the BILLIONS they have raised for some children's network, I just think about all those unfortunate people who probably donated just so they didn't feel like an asshole in the cashier's eyes.

It's funny though. Whenever I decline to help save Africa or whatever, I always feel like the cashier hates me. Like I'm the awful person who doesn't care about children or seals or Africa.

But, ohhh, I've been there.

Prior to my lustrous journalism career, I paid for college via RETAIL JOBS. The worst jobs in the world. And I sold it all: Sears credit cards, upselling Bath and Body Works lotions, Sam's Club PLUS Memberships. And, as a dutiful employee of Sam's, I participated in the "Please look into my big blue eyes and donate to the Children's Network" campaign. For several YEARS.

But to be honest, I couldn't give a crap if the person I checked out donated to charity. I didn't want to ask them, they didn't want to answer me.

So, why do I feel like such a jerk when I pass on the charities at the checkout?

I promise I will go to my husband's graduation. REALLY.

2011-04-22T13:08:00.001-06:00

I was driving around today to meet the husband for graduation lunch* (YAY!!!!!! GRADUATION!!!!!!!) when I was listening to X96. They were doing a radio show all day at a lighting place in Lindon (about an hour away) and how their ceiling fans are 75 percent off.

They told me I could get a lighted fan for $25. TWENTYFIVEDOLLARSPEOPLE. I have been looking for a dirt cheap lighted fan for a year for our office. Because I am a stingy be-otch who is considered below the poverty line, nothing has fit my standard so far.

But, dammit, sale is today only. Which wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't my husband's freakin' graduation.

I'm not allowed to leave the Dee Events Center after I hear his name called out to make a quick dash to Lindon and back, am I? Kelly will forgive me, right? 25 DOLLAR CEILING FANS!!!

Ugh. Fine. I will allow 75-percent-off-perfect-fans slip away for the sake of being a supportive wife and sister**.

*Props to Weber State for providing a no-meat alternative for those of us peeps who are observing Good Friday Catholic-style and can't eat meat. But, I gotta say, Tofu Tacos were weird. But good try.

**Yes, my sister is also graduating today. Don't judge me. I never gave any real consideration to ditching out on any part of graduation festivities for home goods.

The scale has been tipped. I am no longer hip or young or cool.

2011-04-20T13:54:00.000-06:00

In my always ongoing attempt to save money, I follow a lot of salons on social medias to take advantage of deals and specials they run on their page. Because even though I may be poor, I would like to give the illusion that I can afford waxed eyebrows and haircuts. (Illusion immediately shattered once anyone reads this blog.)

So, two of the local salons have been raging online about the new hottest thing: feather extensions. They are like weird/cool hair extensions made of feathers. You'd think I'd be better at explaining these with words, seeing as that is my real-life job, but I'm not:

I am good, however, at stealing photos off the Internet. Observe the above.

I am still on the fence on whether these are cool or lame. I probably would never get them anyhow because I work in an office full of middle-aged men who would wonder what the hell was in my hair and openly quiz me about these hairpieces until I ripped them out so they'd leave me alone.

Besides that, I realized that not only are these not practical, these would look absolutely ridiculous on me for one single reason: I rarely do my hair. I wonder how good those feather extensions would look with bedhead pulled in a messy bun? Probably not so cute.

So this leads me to the obvious conclusion that I am no longer cool or hip. Because I could easily get these feathery additions, actually style my hair, and put effort into the way I present myself.

Or I could sleep for 20 more minutes.

Sleep wins.

Current Dilemma

2011-04-13T08:24:00.000-06:00

What do you buy a 25-year-old male nursing student for a graduation gift, fully aware that you have little to no actual cash?

He got me diamond earrings when I graduated college. He reminded me of this yesterday. I told him, as of right now, all he's getting for graduation is the peace of mind that the mortgage is paid.

Sigh. Anyone have any ideas?

Oh, and P.S. I went to Arizona for a week and soaked up the sun, laid by pool, bicycled around, and had an all-around lazy good time. It was nice to get away from work for awhile and all the stress in life.

Hot Lake

2011-03-30T12:02:00.000-06:00

It has been a whole week since my last post here, and for that, I am sorry. I have been savin' all my good life musings for the work blog, which you can check out here. The latest is about how I fed my dog a cow hoof and the Internet told me it could kill him. But rest assured, I don't think he's going to die. He hasn't thrown up for 24 whole hours. Though his stomach was making all sorts of suspicious noises.

I thought I'd share a cute little anecdote with the blog world. So my sister, my best friend, and I (and our children or significant others) all got the "Pass of all Passes" for Salt Lake City, which is basically a season pass to a water park and some free sports tickets and a season pass to a fun center place with go carts and stuff that is really far away from us.

So we had to go to SLC last week to pick up our passes. My nephew, Christian, is naturally coming with us because my sister is there ... and that's how kids work, I guess. As we are all getting ready to leave, my three-year-old nephew keeps asking, "We're going to the Hot Lake?" And we keep saying "We're going to SALT Lake, Christian." And he's like "Hot Lake!!" and we're like, "Well, at least you are cute."

So we get our passes, and after a mild breakdown from Christian (I would be pissed off too if I was three and went to a water park, saw the slides, then couldn't go swimming.) we went to get lunch in downtown Salt Lake City. Christian keeps asking, "When are we going to Hot Lake?" And we keep telling him, "We are IN Salt Lake."

Then he asks if we are going swimming, and it dawns on us he thinks he is actually going to a lake. And we have to break his poor little three-year-old heart by telling him that it's too cold to swim and Salt Lake is a city that we are in, not a lake where you can swim. Then I'm pretty sure he cried again.

My reliance on the Internet

2011-03-22T09:13:00.000-06:00

I have no problem blogging stories that make me look stupid, both here and at my work blog on Hers. I've written about when I didn't know what an escrow was and paid for home insurance out of my pocket. I've written about car problems that I had no idea how to solve. I've written about tickets I've gotten, embarrassing moments, and other things, all in the name of humorous blogging.

I realized this morning that the Internet has become my new sounding board, if you will. If I am doing something terribly stupid because of lack of experience, people will come to my aid and be like, "Stupid girl! Stop doing that! You have an escrow account! It's a bad battery! Check your alternator!"

And then, I'm like, "Oh, thanks, Internet world, for the advice." And I figure out my escrow, buy a new battery, or what have you.

I also like to think there is some benefit to the world for me being so ~~lacking in any experience~~ open to new ideas. When I was going through the great escrow debacle,* a former co-worker of mine who had just bought a home in Salt Lake City, told me that she was glad I wrote about it, because she would have had no idea next year about whether you needed to renew home insurance yearly pr what an escrow was or whatever and probably would have done the same thing.

What would I do without you, Internet?

I think it gets fuzzy sometimes deciding what is blog-appropriate, which I find especially difficult on my Hers blog because my only guidance given was writing about "being a newlywed and owning my first house and stuff like that." When the sink isn't broken, it sometimes gets difficult to draw the line on what should be written about in relation to my marriage and what should go unsaid.

But, learning from one another, and giving advice to each other, I think is the best benefit of blogging. I hope that other people who do stupid stuff just like me would feel like they could write about it, not just because they may need some advice, but because you have no idea how you writing about how you screwed up a health insurance claim** or something could help someone else who may soon be experiencing the same thing.

*Which I just received my refund check for yesterday! YAY! But will immediately go to paying for a new car battery. BOO!

**No, I haven't done that. No, really, I haven't. Promise.

Open government and people watching

2011-03-14T07:49:00.000-06:00

I should've blogged about this earlier, but well, I didn't feel like it.

So you get it here today.

On Thursday, I had the great pleasure of attending a rally at the Utah State Capital opposing HB477. (Here's a link to a Hers blog I wrote about it, if you care to know my thoughts on the bill. Or if you don't know what it is.)

I was a rally virgin before Thursday night, so I had no idea what to expect when I trekked down to SLC to the rally. I met up down there with my old co-worker Di, and we wooed and booed at the appropriate times when the speaker talked about government secrecy and open records.

I have to say, it felt so good to stand up for something that I cared about. It was really great to see the energy of the crowd, and to see normal people who don't use open records laws in their careers (It's not hard to round up a group of nerdy journalists who are passionate about records laws) standing up for the rights of people.

But, all politics aside, the rally was incredibly entertaining because I am the worst people-watcher on the planet. It is inevitable. And I will stand by the fact that I think you have to be just a little bit crazy to attend a rally. Whether it's like crazy-journalist-nerdy-girl or like bang-your-bongo-drum-unshowered-hippie, normal people don't congregate at rallies. And that's what makes them AWESOME.

The best part of my people-watching activity was a conversation I eavesdropped on behind Di and I. Much of it was muddled because I tried to make myself pay attention to the rally and stuff, but eventually, it got so good, I had to alert Di of this conversation gem.

She talked (in her raspy, lifelong smoker type of voice) to him about how he noticed his eyes and his smile and how nice his body was. He noticed her whole self, especially how she strutted over to him.

He asked for her number, she rambled about how she doesn't have a cell phone and doesn't need a cell phone. And he inquires how he'll ever talk with her again.

The best part can not be summarized, it must be given in actual conversation form:

Her: What's your last name?
Him: **I actually don't remember what he said. We'll go with Smith.**
Her: Your name is Earth Storm Smith? That is quite the name to live up to. Can you handle it?
Him: Oh, yeah, I can handle that.
Her: Well, I don't want to stay on Earth. I want to go to the stars.
Him: Oh, I'll take you to a whole other universe, baby.

It was at this point that I was glad Di and I were standing in a crowd of hundreds and our hysterical laughter that burst out after he told her of wanting to take her to another universe was muffled with cries of "We'll Remember in November!" or some other appropriate political statement.

More car stuff

2011-03-08T10:17:00.001-07:00

Ugh. I don't really want to talk or update on the car situation but I will. In bullet-point form so as to not have to really talk about it that much.

Insurance company found me 20 percent at fault for the accident. Meaning 80 percent of my deductible will be waived, and I owe them like $100. Which isn't bad. If I had $100. Which I don't.
Corolla is REPAIRABLE! Which I guess is supposed to be good, but I was never really attached to that car, and it desperately needs new tires (which I can't afford) so a small (OK, a big) part of me was hoping it would be totaled so I could purchase a new car with decent tires and not have this high-mile, been-in-an-accident-that-will-go-on-a-Carfax vehicle.
As far as my health is concerned, I apparently am lucky to suffer from the worst kind of whiplash. The kind that happens when your head whips to the left and right, not front and back, so my chiropractor gets to see this face three times a week.
I haven't ruined the second rental car. Yet. Apparently I have about two weeks left in it until my car is fixed though, so there is still plenty of time.

And that's about it.

Goodbye Mini Van, Hello Honda!

2011-03-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

The car gods have spoken, and it is clear: I should never drive a mini van. I have accepted this.

So there I was sitting at work this morning, just like every other day, listening to police chatter on the scanner. I hear of a potential automobile and pedestrian accident, and think, Hell, I have nothing better to do. I'll head out there and see if there is a story.

I missed the accident, if there ever really was one, so I began the drive back to work to continue my morning of posting stories online and sipping coffee.

So, there I was, on the freeway. Traveling 70 miles an hour. Then I realize, I am pushing the gas ... and slowing down. I watch the needle plummet from 70 to 60 to 50 ... and then the oil light comes on. This is not good. No, not at all.

I manage to safely navigate the monstrosity of a mini van to the shoulder, and turn the car off. Then try to turn it on again. Nothing. It won't start. What the hell are you supposed to do when you are stuck on the freeway in a freakin' mini van that an auto body shop let you borrow?

I call Kelly first. He doesn't answer.
I call Dad, and say "WTF, what am I supposed to do?" (Alright, I didn't say WTF in acronym or actual form.)
He says, "Dumb woman! Call the auto body shop!" (OK, he didn't call me a dumb woman.)

So I call the auto body shop, explain how their gigantic mini van shit out on me on the freeway. They send a tow truck. I think this whole situation is absolutely hilarious, seeing as this is not my car that is broken and I am not paying for a tow truck.

To add to hilarity, I had some time obviously to sit on the shoulder of the road. In my hurry to get to work some days -- OK, most days -- I generally grab my makeup and put it on while I am waiting for a story to update on the web. So I was all make-up-less because I was rushing to a possible accident. I got bored waiting, and just started putting my makeup on. Can you imagine how odd I must've looked? Some weird girl pulled over on the freeway, emergency flashers on, applying mascara?

So, the tow truck took me and the van back to the shop, and lucky for me, they had a nice little Honda Accord waiting for me.

It may have been an unfortunate way to get rid it, but I am SO glad to not be driving that van anymore.

Soccer Mom status

2011-03-03T12:21:00.000-07:00

Everyone has their strengths, myself included. I can write up a storm, I dress well when I actually put the effort into it, I can host a pretty good party, and I have mastered an awesome banana bread recipe.

But one thing you will never catch me bragging that I am good at: driving. Or, more specifically, parking.

I mean, I'm not getting into accidents or anything (well, OK, I just did, but that wasn't my fault) but I am not going to say I'm a wonderful driver, because I'm not. Everyone has their strengths, and parking is just not mine.

So you can imagine the ironic hilarity that has been ensuing since the auto body shop loaned me this car:

Anything that is called a "Grand Caravan" is probably something I shouldn't be allowed to drive. I'm just sayin'.

But in all seriousness, anything is better than sharing the piece of junk my husband calls a car. I fear for my safety in that thing. Plus, the minivan has a million times cooler features than my Corolla did (does?). I not only can lock the door from the beeper thing on the key chain, but I can also open the sliding doors with a touch of button.

Oh, if any of you are thinking that I should update you on the status of my car/claim/accident stuff, I agree. I wish I had something to share. But whose fault the accident was has yet to be determined. Though I am not sure how it is my fault that someone ran into me. But I shall divulge details later when I have them!

Stressfest

2011-02-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, so not that anyone is open and welcome to adding stressors to their life, but the last thing I need is another stressfest situation. We did the whole "Guess what? You don't have home insurance, oh wait you do. But pay for it, then figure out you have an escrow and try to sort it all out." That was no fun. We're doing the "Yay, you've been accepted to graduate school, however how are you going to pay for it seeing as your husband is slightly unemployed?" We've got the whole stressful situation stuff all under control.

Enter: Car accident 2011.

Yes, yes, I will share with you, hopefully for the final time, how I was in a car accident. Because I loved telling everyone I knew, two insurance agencies, both of the people who worked at the places I got estimates for work, and the random chick who happened to pass my car in a parking lot. Though I will allow one more story telling seeing as a I have a chiropractor appointment in a few hours, and he'd probably like to know what happened.

Anyways, here I am driving to work like any normal morning. I am about to cross the train tracks on 2nd Street in Ogden when I see the lights flashing for an oncoming train. Because I do not want to die, I naturally braked. And because it just snowed and my tires are embarrassingly bare, I slid to the side.

Enter GMC Yukon, who slams my passenger side, sending glass flying throughout my car, and causing significant (to the tune of at least $5,000 external damage so far) damage to my passenger side. Significant, as in, smashed into the frame of the car. And he pushed my car to its resting place where my windshield was touching the arm of the railroad sign thing that flashes and has arms for when trains come by. I quickly reverse out of the train track area and get out of the car.

My first question is, Are you OK? His first question is "Why did you stop?" Uhhh, dude, the train? I enjoy life and did not want to die. And that is all we say to each other, due to a language barrier, for 40 minutes until the police show up.

Being in a car accident sucks. Dealing with car accident aftermath SUCKS WORSE. Like, where can I go to get treated for whiplash? Where should my repairs be done? Is it worth repairing? How am I going to get to work when Kelly needs to go to school? Why the HELL did I not put rental car insurance on my policy?

The worst question is: whose fault was it? The answer to the question will either cost me $500 (cost of my deductible) or will get me free car repairs and medical coverage. (Well, not "free" but save the deductible cost.) I thought for sure they would find him at fault, but to be honest, I was blindsided by the accident and had no idea that he was coming until he hit me. I have no idea if he was in the lane next to me (I'm not even 100 percent sure if that is a lane or just a large median) or if he was behind me, which makes a big difference.

I guess time will tell, but daaaaamn, this was not the stress I needed right now.

Free time? What's free time?

2011-02-18T13:54:00.000-07:00

Goodbye trashy television marathons, reading for pleasure, cooking for fun, and other recreational activities that I have acquired over the last two years.

Why?

I've been accepted into graduate school.

You are really dumb. For real.

2011-02-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I just like telling embarrassing stories about myself. Who doesn't love those.

So there I was, minding my own business, intent on getting a salad from Wendy's to not counteract all of my gym-goings by scarfing a burger mid-shift on a Thursday afternoon.

I decided to hit the drive-thru because I had some work back at the office to complete. I went to make a left hand turn. (this is at the Wendy's at 12th and Washington for all you locals who will inevitably know what I am talking about) There are those stupid cement barriers blocking the entrance from making a straight left turn, so I had to kind of drive up the lane and over. Essentially into oncoming traffic lanes for like a second.

That is illegal.
I learned this when a police officer also made the same left hand turn as I did, and proceeded to pull me over in the parking lot. Of Wendy's.

He told me it was illegal, and though I was sincerely surprised at the time (but once thought about it, could see that I was absolutely stupid), he ticketed me anyways. Thanks.

While that is slightly embarrassing because it is a stupid driving mistake in and of itself, it gets so much better. This wasn't the first time I've ever been pulled over, so I knew he would want my license, registration, insurance, all that crap.

So I open my glove box before he had a chance to get to my car to find all of the necessary documents. Aaaaaaand, on top of a stack of papers, there rests an empty (open) beer bottle.

No, I never drank inside my car, rather, home brewing backfired. Remember all those posts about brewing my own beer? Yeah, we recycle bottles and my parents give me theirs when they randomly decide to drink Sam Adams at their house.

So the week before, Mom gave me a single bottle on my way out from their house and I threw it in my purse. Then I was sitting at a stoplight and was fishing around for something in my purse, and found the bottle, and threw it in my glove box. And forgot about it.

And there it sat in the glove box, with an officer just feet away, mocking me. I was certain that an empty beer bottle in my car would cause a catastrophic misunderstanding that could possibly get me into a lot of trouble. So I did the best thing I could think. I slammed the glove box closed, and told the officer I couldn't find my registration.

I am so stupid.

Wherein I embarrass myself in a theater full of people.

2011-01-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

I am such a grumpy bey-otch when it comes to technology. Like, I hate when people check their Facebook on their phones when you are in a group of people. I hate when people text during dinner. I hate when people pull out their phones in a movie theater. I generally hate the appearance of iPads or tablets in general.

So you can imagine how irritated I was when I was sitting in the movies last night, fully engrossed in whether Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman will end up together. Then I heard the most annoying beeping, like an alarm going off.

I swear to you, I at first thought it was the movie. Like, I was watching and waiting for Ashton to turn the alarm off on his phone and figure out the meaning of such an alarm appearing in such an odd place in the movie. But I quickly realized, it was, in fact, some movie-goer who committed such a fail.

And I just sat there waiting, waiting, waiting for whoever it was to turn their damn alarm off. Seriously people, we're trying to watch a movie here.

And then it hit me....about two minutes later. Did I seriously forget to turn the alarm off my phone after I set it for 5ish the day before while taking a recovery nap after a long night in Wendover? Did I not recognize the annoying beep because I had just downloaded a new alarm app for my phone that I had never actually heard before?

Yes.

Yes, that happened. And, yes, I was mortified as I pulled out my phone from my jacket pocket (seriously, it wasn't even two feet away from my face) and fumbled through the math equation and snooze button maze that generally keeps me from turning off the alarm in my sleep.

And then I shriveled into a little ball and died of embarrassment in the theater.

To counteract my last post.

2011-01-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

I am forcing optimism! Being excited about life! Because it's Thursday, and it's Kelly's 25th birthday, and tomorrow is Friday and I am going to Wendover to gamble and stuff! What is there not to be excited about?

Ok, even though some days I get overwhelmed with bills and emotions and what not (I'm a woman, what can ya do?) I am definitely trying to see the upside in life.

SUCH AS:

I am very excited to get everybody together tonight for Kelly's birthday. Feels like we haven't had a good ol' family gathering in awhile.

The aforementioned Wendover trip with some of my really good friends to celebrate a 21st birthday! Complete with vests and ties (for them) and a dress and heels for me. I do love most opportunities to get dressed up and fancy every once in awhile. Not like gonna-make-love-in-this-club hoe style dressed, but like classy cocktail dress style. Why don't people do that more often?

I took a little side project job (if you can even call it a job) wherein I write about random California cities for a real estate company. And they pay me a few bucks for doing it. And I am getting paid for the first time here soon. YAY MONEY. The goal is to keep those extra dollars for "fun" stuff, like going to the movies or out to dinner or something so life can stay a little fun. Or maybe I'll buy steak instead of ground beef, and chicken breasts instead of the much cheaper chicken thighs. I'll live it up, I'm sure.

We are at full capacity (20 gallons, with an additional 15 gallons already bottled) at the Clay-and-Jessica brewery. (We should really think of a fake name for our fake brewery.) I am sure no one cares about the specifics of what beers we are brewing, so I won't go into details. But we have improved our processes, made brewing beer cheaper, and ultimately saving more money in the process. I am really enjoying home brewing as a hobby because I find the process to be really relaxing, and not much like work at all. I think some people think we brew beer because we're crazy twentysomething alcoholics, but I truly enjoy the process of it. Much like I love cooking. You wouldn't say I was a glutton because I enjoy cooking and eating my own food, would you?

Well, that was a random rant added in there. I guess these are all mostly happenings as of late that are not interesting enough on their own standing. Yeah.

not today.

2011-01-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

This is probably one of those instances where I should adhere to the rules of "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it all."

This blog post should probably not exist. Because it has become habit for me whenever I write something I am not happy about, I put some kind of cheesy thing at the end like "I haven't had spending money for four months ... well, at least I'm alive!"

Today, I don't really feel like that. Today, I feel like it is taking everything I have just to keep everything pulled together. I imagine myself holding a million pieces of rope that I am trying to hold and tie together, but they are all getting pulled in opposite directions. And I am tired of the constant struggle, the constant pull, the constant battle just to keep my shit together.

I see the numbers dwindling quicker than ever out of the savings account to pay for the most basic of items. I see the cable bill going up, the gas bill being ungodly high for some reason, and the realization that I haven't even paid half the bills yet.

And there's so many feelings. Anger. Bitterness. Resentment. I don't really want them there, and I try so hard sometimes to fake it, but it's just so hard. Some days I just don't want to slap a smile on my face and just think everything is going to be OK. Because take one or two more months or this, and it won't be.

And that's it. There's no cheesy ending. There's no tie about how even though life is dealing us a shitty hand, we'll just keep playing, hoping to win the jackpot. Not today.

breaking news

2011-01-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

I hear it first on the police scanner that fills the most mundane moments of my existence in the pepto-bismal colored cubicles I drag myself to every morning:

Suspect shot in the stomach.

It's an officer-involved shooting.

I scurry around the office as quickly as possible, calling dispatch centers and listening intently to the scanner trying to catch tidbits of an address that will give me direction. My editor hands me an address, and I am off.

Silently cursing myself for not investing in a coffee cup that is also portable, I take one last swig of liquid energy and run out the newsroom to my car, trying to program the address into my cell phone during my swift departure.

But, just my luck, the GPS is down on my phone, so I pull out the Garmin, which has remained unused since the investment of the smart phone. Both are programmed for the same address, so both annoying female computer voices chime directions at me. Once they tell me to go in opposite directions. I curse, and guess which way to go.

When attempting to travel to a breaking news event, everything I do seems faster. I drive faster than normal -- though not too fast, because it would be just be too ironic to get pulled over by an officer when all you want to do is travel towards the police. If I am eating anything, I eat it quicker. Everything is rushed, rushed, rushed because I need to get there before the information is shared to the media and I'm the only one not there.

But, 99.7 percent of the time, I rush to the scene, I jump out of the car without taking the extra seconds to rummage the messy backseat to see if I have an extra hat or scarf to guard off the 17 degree winter chill, and I sit and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.

And wait. And curse myself again for opting for a stupid, normal ceramic coffee mug, and not a sleek, plastic, covered cup. And remember why I don't wear Converse shoes to work (except for this one day) because they have zero heat retention.

And then the news is released, and the TV cameras get thrown up in front of me to where I can't see the source speaking anymore. The local media darlings of television somehow always take the lead on these sort of reporter gatherings, and I just toss a question or two in while trying to write coherent notes while my fingers shake from the cold.

And then it all slows down from there. The editor is called, the heater in the car is turned on high, and usually a trip through the drive-thru to get a quick bite before returning to the office to write a story is in order. The day slows down, and then it just gets tiring.

Cancel the afternoon plans, I think a nap is in order.

New Year.

2011-01-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

I felt like this last year was so static in so many ways.

I worked at the same job.

Still own the same house.

Kelly is still in school.

I didn't get pregnant or anything life-alter-y like that. (Not that I wanted to.)

It's just all .. the same.

2009 was so overly eventful -- running a newspaper, graduating college, getting totally screwed over by a freelance job I had, getting married, going to Jamaica, house hunting for half the year ... it was A LOT.

I don't want to relive 2009. That's for damn sure. But I am hoping that things will shake up a little more in 2011. I am hoping that I will not sit idly by when I feel like I am stuck in places, and start to make some changes that I want to see in life. I hope to complain less, and do more.

But even though 2010 had no big headliners, there were still some great things going on.

I got a puppy and somewhat overcame my fear of dogs. (A little.)

I feel loved.

I freakin' lived. How is that not great enough? I was given a year of life. SCORE.

Working woman or domestic diva?

2010-12-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

Latest "Hers" blog post here.

This topic of gender roles in a marriage is actually kind of new content, I haven't really talked too much about it for like the last year or so on this blog. I think I might have done some ranty posts, but I have always struggled with the question of what my "role" is in a marriage while I am the main (or sometimes only) financial provider for the little family.

Enjoy!

(Oh, and if you haven't read the post about when my siblings and I used to break into our presents when we were little kids, you should do that too. I think that's like two post before that one.)

Gift fail.

2010-12-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

It's Christmas! I'm working! Well, technically, I have already written three stories and I am anxiously awaiting the night reporter to come in so I can leave and do Christmas-y things.

So, I was probably most excited for two gifts to give to my family this year:

1. A sled for Christian. Because it's awesome, and what kid doesn't want a sled!?
2. A bone for Luigi that is literally as long as he is. It's huge. AWESOME.

Reactions:

1. Christian thought it was a boat.
2. Luigi is so scared of the bone he won't go near it.

This was a gift fail.

Dad.

2010-12-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

My dad is awesome and he helped me immensely with a Christmas present I was trying to do homemade that kind of went awry. I asked him today when I could come pick it up. He text me and said he was at the mall.

I call him.

Me: So, you are at the mall?

Dad: Si.

Me: What are YOU doing at the mall?

Dad: Jessica, what day is it today?

Me: Oh, It's December 23. Of course you are at the mall.

Dad: Yep.

Android: Cleaning up my language since 2010.

2010-12-21T13:59:00.001-07:00

So today I was trying to text my friend, and decided to try out the speech-to-text function on my fancy pants smart phone.

In the past, I generally have hated the speech function. I have the unfortunate combination of a hint of a Minnesota accent with certain words and the drawl and lack of "T"s that living in Utah has provided me. This equals the worst speech-to-text combination ever.

I say "warm milk," my phone types "watermelon." Yeah.

But every once in awhile, I take another stab at it because I think the idea is cool and I REALLY want it to work, so I try it. What I wanted to text:

"That sucks that you are Fed Ex's bitch."

And instead I got:

"That sucks that you are Fed Ex's ####"

WHAT, ANDROID!?! You won't let me swear?

So of course, I think of every foul word that I can (most of which I don't use. I kind of cringed when I said them. But it was like a scientific experiment!) And I got:

#### damn ### #### ####

Huh.

(LINK TIME! This time on the HERS blog, I talk about those good old Christmas feelings. Or really, how crappy Christmas sometimes feel when you have no money or just moved into a house two days before. That pretty much describes the last two years for me.)

death. destruction.

2010-12-20T08:16:00.000-07:00

This last week was a little rough.
The headlines for my stories this week:

Two sought in early morning shooting in Ogden

Police investigating overnight shooting

Three teens injured when van crashes

Pedestrian struck, killed in Ogden

Passerby, neighbor pull handicapped man from flames

Niece killed aunt's attacker

Yeah. This all happened in a five-day span which also included a half-sick-day I had to take because I had a cold and felt like absolute crap.

Combine all of this with lots of personal problems and issues, and you get an emotional woman crying at 1 in the morning on Friday night.

Journalism warps your mind a little bit. As I stood 10-20 feet away from the body of the man killed in the hit and run, my thoughts were not of the terrible-ness of what just happened or the affects of this tragedy to this man's family. I thought about where I was going to get coffee at and that I hardly ever get to see the sunrise in the morning.

A little part of me was kind of glad that I had a mini-break down on Friday. It showed me I was not unflappable, that I am still affected. That I can't handle death, destruction, money issues, personal issues ... and be ok with all of it. I needed a vent, and that was it.

I hate people.

2010-12-17T08:26:00.000-07:00

I feel like I am turning into an old woman because I am learning that I really hate people and most instances where people would gather in large masses.

I hate traffic.
I hate holiday shopping.
I hate clubs.
I hate waiting in lines.

And this is no holiday-rant-y rant. I hate all of those things even when it's not 10 days before Christmas. I would much rather enjoy a beer in the comfort of my own home (or a friend's) in sweatpants than get dressed up and go to a club. I would rather buy online than wait in lines. I will avoid Riverdale Road like the plague, even if it leads to my favorite shopping center of all time. (TARGET!)

I think this might be a complex issue, however. I think my hatred of all things that involve people gathering that has developed in full-force over the past several months may also coincide with the Miller-single-income-debacle-of-2010. All that crap listed above has two common denominators: People. (Which we have discussed.) Money. (Which I have none of.)

So perhaps the stress of people being everywhere is amplified when combined with the stress of zero disposable income and wedding gifts and groceries and toothpaste and prescriptions and CHRISTMAS PRESENTS and all the other crap that seems to need to be bought RIGHT NOW.

Evolution of style

2010-12-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

If 2006 me saw late 2010 me, I think she would be appalled at my absolute lack of fashion sense and style.

With her sparkly flats, red-lined lips, bleach-blond hair, and bedazzled top, she would cringe at the plain-ness that she would one day develop into: natural blond hair pulled in a frizzy ponytail that every-so-slightly hints at bed head, most likely wearing some kind of yoga or sweatpants, and while I haven't crossed into the realm of baggy t-shirts worn as regular clothing, I'm getting pretty damn close.

I blame the 6 a.m. work start. Who in their right mind would give up sleep to straighten or style their hair? Not me. I am usually in such a hurry out the door I'm lucky if my entire outfit matches. Ok, that's not true, I do match color-wise, but sometimes the style choices are questionably matched. Maybe a too-casual shirt with dress pants, or a nice button-up with corduroys. (Seriously, who even WEARS corduroys anymore? But they are so much warmer when standing next to automobile wreckage than dress pants...)

And it is becoming increasingly important for me to be comfortable. I think I go through "comfortable-mode" in winter months. I still actually dress somewhat style-y in the summer months. But in winter, you would be hard-pressed to find me in a pair of jeans more than two times a weeks. Hoodies and sweatpants forever!

But every once in awhile, after a particularly lazy, slump-y style era, I will talk myself into actually dressing like a twentysomething for a little while. Maybe put on some foundation! Wear a regular bra! Accessorize!

That time is comin', I can feel it.

The verdict? Delicious!

2010-12-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was able to try our first home brew: the brown ale!

It was a successful brew! Though I felt it smelled a little bit like spray paint (Both of my drinking counterparts disagreed, one said it smelled like New Castle). I would have liked it to be a bit more carbonated, but there is the chance that it will continue to carbonate as time goes on. Unfortunately, the 22 ounce bottles we also used have yet to carbonate, so hopefully that will happen if we give it a few more weeks.

We have been brewing like crazy since our first batch, and here is what we have sitting around in various stages:
Belgian White Ale: bottled, waiting to carbonate. Could be done at the earliest this weekend, but I'm not getting my hopes up because the brown ale took several weeks longer than we thought to carbonate as well.
Holiday Porter: I am super excited about this one. It's still sitting in a carboy on it's second round of fermentation. (I am sorry to people who have no idea what this means. Pretty much, it's when the yeast and stuff turns to alcohol) It is our first non-kit recipe we've tried. I picked it because it didn't sound overwhelming: it had some common cooking ingredients: ginger, oranges, allspice, cloves, cinnamon sticks ... but upon the actual execution of the beer, we realized that is a lot of stuff going on ... so it's still working on fermenting everything. If you bottle it before it's done fermenting, the extra sugar in the beer that hasn't fermented will carbonate, which will leave you with exploding bottles. No bueno.
Red Ale: Sitting in a 5-gallon bucket. Done fermenting, should be moved to the carboy, but that holiday porter is just jacking everything up.
Dogfish Head 60 Minute India Pale Ale Clone: This beast was a clone from a microbrewery in Delaware that we've never tried, but the guy and his brewery was on a really cool documentary and he is also the host of a new show called Brew Masters. And he's awesome, so we figure the beer must be awesome too. This beer was very overwhelming, but once we got our shit together and googled some terms we'd never heard of and stopped dropping things and overboiling things, it went pretty good. Smelled extremely hoppy. Usually you use like two bags of hops per batch. This one had like six. This is also sitting in a 5 gallon bucket, it was just brewed yesterday.

In other news, I'm relinking my Standard-Examiner blog here again. I posted about puppies and Thanksgiving aftermath since I last talked about the blog:
Eat, Drink, and Be Married.
Check it out!

worst puppy mommy ever.

2010-11-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure I could handle having children. My sweet puppy gets hurt and I get all worried and upset and all sorts of uncomfortableness ensues.

Yesterday, Kelly and I and two of our friends and our dogs went sledding/"snowboarding" at one of the local golf courses. It was a blast, for sure, with the exception of when our three-person tobaggon veered near a tree and my leg somehow managed to hit the tree and my body wraps itself around the tree whilest tobaggon continues down the hill.

But that wasn't the worse part. Our final run we all sat on our boards and slid down. When Kelly didn't get as far as us, he strapped into my board (somehow we switched halfway down the mountain.) and headed down the hill.

My dog, the retard, ran in front of Kelly. My snowboard, in all it's cheap glory, has some sharp edges. The board hit Luigi and sliced his front leg. Beyond a little yelp, Luigi acts unphased and continues chasing Kelly down the hill.

No one notices anything. Luigi jumps in the Corolla. Then someone is like, "Hey, what's all that red stuff all over the ground!? Who's bleeding?"

And I look into the Corolla, see Luigi's leg, and it is just a huge gash with blood dripping out of it. I want to say I saw the bone on his leg, but I don't really remember. I kind of freaked out a little bit, I'm not to lie. It could have just been snow in the wound or something, but I remember seeing something white in the gash.

Of course we don't discover this until after Luigi has bled on the seats in the car. Luckily for us, our friend borrowed his dad's truck and for some odd reason he had gauze and pads in there, so Kelly's nursing-ness went to work and we were on our way.

Apparently, just because you are an animal "hospital" does not mean you are open at all hours like a people hospital. We drove to our regular animal hospital anticipating Luigi would need stitches and, alas, it was closed.

So we go to Kelly's parent's house because that's where we were headed anyways. I mainly wanted to inquire where the nearest REAL animal hospital was, but Kelly's dad just decided to fix the dog himself.

Butterfly bandages and gauze are infinitely cheaper than stitches put in by vets. Just sayin'. So that's Luigi's current state. I'm praying that those work for him and I don't have to take him to the vet today, because it's freaking expensive. I realize nobody really has extra money laying around for vet's bills, but the financials are crappy enough already. Give me a break, dog.

But the whole thing just made me feel terrible. Luigi looked like he could care less, but I felt so bad holding my pup while my father-in-law attempted to shave his little paw so the bandages would stick. I apparently showed all my emotions on my face because several people commented on how I looked so sad and worried. Which is an over-reaction, I'm sure. But when you are a first-time puppy mommy and your dog gets hurt in a stupid accident, you feel terrible and worried and overprotective.

God help me when I have children.

The blizzard that wasn't and a new blog!

2010-11-24T07:42:00.000-07:00

I knew it. There was all this hype about a huge blizzard coming into Utah last night.
I just want the blogging world to know I totally called that this blizzard was going to be lame. Twitter proof:

"jm_miller: I want $5 from everyone who overhyped this storm if it's not awesome. Which is pretty much every media outlet in the state. #snownami (11:45 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 23)"

It was so lame. It was a regular snowstorm, at best. But oh well, I guess the snow wasn't too bad and I got home and back to work again not dead, so I can't complain. But let the record show. I PREDICTED SNOWPOCALYPSE WOULD SUCK.

In other news, the editors at my place of employment, The Standard-Examiner, have given me my own blog! To basically write about ... what I write about here. But hopefully a little more thought-out, a little more focused. So I present you all with:

Eat, Drink, and Be Married.

I have one post. About Thanksgiving. Which was pretty much already written about here. Sorry, guys, my life doesn't have that much content to have two completely original blogs. For awhile while my Hers blog is catching up on life as I know it, I'm sure it will see many recycled topics that I have discussed here. After that, who knows, hopefully I can still have enough to say to write mostly original content here and there, and not just become a linky monster and send you to my employer for every post.

The thrill of it all

2010-11-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

I was explaining to my friend the other day how thrilling shopping on Black Friday can be.

The hustle of bustle of large crowds, having your eye on that ONE deal you HAVE to get, the waiting in the cold, the sleep deprivation, the works.

And then I realized ... wait, I hate all of those things.

I hate being cold.
I hate people, especially in crowds.
I hate early mornings.

However, all of that is overridden by my obsession with getting an awesome deal. It is all worth it. I think the main reason I love it so much is the tradition of it all. There's nothing better than looking through ads with your sister and mom after a huge Thanksgiving feast, making a game plan of what stores to hit first, then waking up at some ungodly hour to fight the crowds and come out victorious with the sweetest deal.

There is one thing though, that I have never been able to work out. At least an hour of your life is probably going to spent that morning just standing out in the cold, waiting for stores to open. Maybe more if you are a super shopping freak. And it's November. It's freezing. You bundle up in boots, gloves, sweaters, winter jackets, the works. And then you run into a store with a mass full of people and get all sorts of sweaty pushing and sliding past each other in your warmest winter wear. Or you strip all your layers and your entire shopping cart is full of discarded hats and gloves you threw off in a hurry, not the best deals in the store.

Plus, only rookies grab carts anyways. (Unless you have a designated cart person in your group.) You must remain small and stealthy to sneak throughout the aisles if you actually want to get anywhere in these stores.

That time we were poor and made our own liquor...

2010-11-15T09:03:00.000-07:00

I feel like I'm back in the days of prohibition because I have resorted to making my own alcoholic beverages to save money.

Is alcohol that important to me that I would spend my hard-earned pennies attempting to make it on my own? Not really. Ok, well kind of.

With the wintery weather making random appearances in Utah, I have been craving nothing more than Bailey's and hot chocolate. This beverage always reminds me of my sister and mom. Last year, we drank a couple of these throughout the fall/winter season, and it was nice. I also lived at my parent's house last year while waiting to close on our house. And they paid for the Baileys.

So, internet stalking I went, and found a recipe to make your own Baileys! Yes, my friends, apparently some cheap Irish whiskey, heavy whipping cream, sweetened condensed milk, instant coffee, chocolate and vanilla equals awesome Baileys goodness.

Homemade version: $9

Liquor store version: $20

Score.

I also have been brewing beer, which I have mentioned before. This was a little bit pricier of a start-up process, but I think we have everything we need now, it's just about getting the raw ingredients to make a brew.

And here is 10 gallons of awesome-ness. The one on the right is a brown ale that can be bottle next week. The left one is a Belgian ale that is going to be siphoned into the carboy after the brown ale is bottled.

At the end of this, we will have 116 bottles of beer.

I think we spent about $90 on raw materials.

Homemade version: $0.77 a bottle

Store version: $1.10 (conservatively) a bottle, depending on what kind you buy.

Yay for being cheap and creative!

He's going to get HOW big?

2010-11-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

I am retarded.

So, when I made the decision to get Luigi (which I admit was a hasty, impulsive, and un-thought-out decision), I couldn't get past his cute little brown eyes and how calm he was and "oh-my-god-Kelly-can-we-please-take-him-home???" stage.

Yesterday, I went to one those game/calender stores that open every year for Christmas. I immediately gravitated to the chocolate lab calenders. Which made me hate myself a little, because as a general rule, I kind of hate most people that have dog calenders and dog mugs and are obsessed with their animals. Usually strangers, I like the weird animal-lovey people that I know.

Anyways. After looking at the chocolate lab puppies and reminiscing how cute my Luigi once was, I grabbed a regular lab calender.

HOLY SHIT. HAVE YOU SEEN HOW HUGE CHOCOLATE LABS GET?!?

Blame my fear of dogs on my total lack of paying attention to any kind of animal. I can't for the life of me think of how large this dog is going to get.

Until I looked at that calender and saw a lab's neck that was bigger than my head.
Damn it.

GRE update. And beer.

2010-11-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

So, update on the whole GRE-grad-school thing. If anyone cares.

I took the GRE on Friday. It was ..... hard. Like seriously. Most frustrating hours in recent history.

Of course, I studied triangle formulas and they gave me questions about circles. And I studied 140 vocabulary words that have appeared in past GRE tests, and none of them were on the one I took. On the plus side, I do think I rocked the writing portion. I hope.

But, I was hoping coming away from the test, I would feel SOMETHING. Like either a great sense of satisfaction or some kind of disappointment. But, all I'm feeling is uneasy. Since this is the first year of WSU's program, they haven't said what scores they are looking for or what the average is. So, I have no real sense of if I did well or if it will be enough or anything like that. So we'll see.

On another, not-so-academic note, one of my favorite hobbies I've gotten into recently is brewing beer at home. It's a lot of fun, and so far, I've only used pre-made kits (Mr. Beer-style) and I've made decent beer, but it's nothing to brag too much about. Some of it tastes a little odd, which I am thinking is because of the pre-made weirdness, not because of my skills as a brewer.

So, my friend Clay and I upgraded to a real brewing system! (Well, "we" is a loose term, since he bought all the expensive brewing stuff and I bought a pot and ingredients because of the whole two-people-single-income debacle currently being imposed on the Miller home) But, anyhow, we brewed for the first time last night, a brown ale, and I am very excited to see how it turns out. It smelled really good, if that's any indication. We had a few little hiccups on the way, but I think that we could have possibly made 5 gallons of decent beer. We shall see....

Are you serious?!

2010-11-04T07:29:00.000-06:00

So, as if I haven't emphasized this enough in previous blogs, I am quite the blog stalker. I just get bored easily. I probably should go earn my master's degree to take up the time I spend mind-numbingly searching the Internet...

I read on a couple of random blogs about what to do with all that candy your kids get at Halloween.

Uhhhhhhh, you let them eat it. DUH.

I read about people who exchange their kid's candy for a book. A BOOK?! If my mom would have told me that I had to give up a pillowcase FULL of CANDY to her in exchange for a BOOK, I would have freaked out. Actually, I probably wouldn't have. I just would have been really sad. And then I would have read the book.

But, anyways. Another suggestion was to go find a dentist that gives cash for candy, go donate your candy, and then give it to the troops overseas. WTF.

Don't cheapen the Halloween experience by taking away one of the best parts for kids -- the candy. There is nothing sweeter when you are a kid than coming home after a chilly night and sprawling out your candy along the living room floor with your siblings, making trades and comparing who got more Gobstoppers or how to get rid of the Mounds bars.

So what, they have a day or two on a sugar high. They terrorize the house for a little bit, and then they'll come down. When I was a kid, we were the ones that tried to make that candy last as long as possible. My guess is most kids will binge for like three days and do the same.

But, who am I to give an opinion on parenting? I own a dog. So I guess, really, you can ignore everything above, because I am not qualified and I have not joined the Mommy club, so, naturally, I have no valid opinion about children.

Lucky number 17.

2010-10-28T08:46:00.000-06:00

So I decided this year to have Thanksgiving dinner at our house.
No, I've never made a turkey.
I've made my mom's stuffing once ... maybe.
So, needless to say, I am a bit nervous.
But what really makes me nervous is that 17 people are coming to this Thanksgiving. SEVENTEEN. I didn't even know I was related to that many people in Utah.
But, oh, the joys of in-laws.
My family counts for six (if Christian counts as an entire person) and then we've got 11 from Kelly's family, including an aunt and uncle coming from out of state to help his grandma move and my brother and sister in law who live in Arizona.
This will be definitely interesting, not just for cooking reasons, but just because I've never even been to a holiday dinner of this size. It's always just been our little family of five (then of eight once we added spouses and children later in life).

I already kind of miss summer, but I am pretty excited for the holidays, Thanksgiving especially. Bring on the cooking!

On another note, my sister and I have gotten our craft on in a big way. We are doing our first craft show this weekend at my parent's church! Shalee made those floral fabric headbands that are all the rage right now, and I have used my jewelry-making skills my Aunt Joann taught me to make vintage-looking necklaces with skeleton keys and other old keys as pendants. Wish us luck!

channeling grandpa

2010-10-19T12:30:00.000-06:00

Being a journalist means sometimes people let me do cool things that they wouldn't let normal peoples do:

Case in point. I have been covering the debacle of the Riverdale Cinedome being bought by Larry H Miller/demolished to become a car dealership.

Yesterday, demolition began and some crazy guys thought it would be entertaining to let me drive the backhoe for a little while and smash some of the Cinedome in:

They originally asked me if I "wanted to take a shot at it," which I thought they were referring to taking photos closer of the demo, since I was slinging my camera with me that morning. Yeah....I was wrong.

I was a little self-conscious at first when I started, not going to lie. But that machine ripped through that old Cinedome like hot butter. No big deal.

I text my mom and told her about my new hobby as a construction worker and what I got to do at work that day. When I went to their house last night, she told me about how it was like I was channeling my grandpa (her dad, who died before I was born).

He worked with these types of machines. She said if he were alive, he would have thought it was so cool for his granddaughter to do this.

Here is just a random photo I took, shows what the old theater used to look like, for any family members or randoms who aren't from the area.

Aaaand, here it is in the demolition process.

It sucks that this building had to go down, but I went and toured it before the demolition early this month, and let me assure you, it was just a mess. I could not fathom any way a repair would have been possible, unfortunately. So at least it was cool to see it get knocked down.

preparing the fort.

2010-10-15T12:45:00.000-06:00

I knew the day was coming, but I didn't really want to come to grips with it.
But it's here.
It's always easy to spot when the season is going to end. They don't give you a two week notice (or at least Kelly doesn't give me a two-week notice). He just shows up at the house one day at 3 p.m. He's not supposed to be off work until 6.
"Why are you here?" I asked him, surprised.
"They sent us home early with pay," his reply.
Shit.
Not that being home with pay isn't good, but that will last about one week ... and then the 'fire season' is over. Kelly's job is done.
He is officially unemployed.
I do this every year, but this is the first year I am going to feel the hurt. Every other year, he's been single, he's not contributed to house payments or car payments or medical bills. Every year, it's never a smooth transition, it's always one month, two months, three months until another job makes its way into Kelly's life.
And, even though I don't know officially when the job ends, (Does Kelly know? I don't know, he is very elusive about that job because I was very vocal about my opposition of him working the temp job another year) I am already feeling overwhelmed with a one-person income.
Not only a one-person income, a one-person journalist income. Oh. My. God. What are we going to do?

So I've mentally prepared myself:
No more shopping trips.
No restaurants.
No more buying wine or beer.
No more occasional pedicures.
No more nice dinners of good steak or expensive ingredients.

I felt bad because we were supposed to go golfing this afternoon. I have a certificate for a free round of golf and a cart. However, that doesn't pay for the second person to golf, so that's a good $25 we could save.

That could buy us a lot of ramen noodles. Which we may be eating a lot of here soon. :(

stranger danger

2010-10-12T08:29:00.001-06:00

I ran into some very talkative kids while walking Luigi a couple of days ago. Kids who kind of followed me for a while, making me ask, "Where the hell are your parents?"

Which made me think: these kids were pretty much the exact opposite of my sister and I.

When my sister and I were little, we were scared of Mormon missionaries. I mean, think of it from a kid's perspective: we're not LDS, we have no idea who missionaries are or what they do, and we're told about stranger danger at school; then there's these two adults who are well-dressed, and ridiculously friendly talking to us while we play in our yard.

It was not cool.

So, when my sister and I would see any missionaries start walking down our street, we would run as fast as we could and hide behind the bushes that were in the front yard. We curled up in little balls, awaiting the missionaries to pass us before we could come out from our hiding spots and continue to play.

We were awesome.

anniversary weekend

2010-10-11T09:17:00.000-06:00

I have to say, it was really nice to spend the weekend with Kelly in Park City. We don't see each other often enough, so it was nice to put the tools away and put the nursing homework down and chill out for the weekend.
I realized that I forgot that Park City things are ridiculously expensive, so no art work was purchased, however, I did get some sweet lime olive oil and tangerine balsamic vinegar (that sounds really lame ... I love cooking and food) and Kelly got a new tea pot and some teas from a cool little bookstore.

When we got back to Ogden, my sister told us that she cooked a roast (Momma is out of town in Minnesota, so she has to cook!) and surprised us with a "Happy Anniversary" cake. Christian thinks cake = birthday, plus he went to a birthday party over the weekend, so the whole evening he said "happy birthday" a lot, but sounded a little confused because we kept telling him "No, it's anniversary!"

And, now, it's Monday, and it's back to work, and blah blah blah. At least it's Monday Night Football, and the Vikings are playing! :)

sneak peek

2010-10-08T07:19:00.001-06:00

I would say this is coming along nicely, wouldn't you?

I'll be the cleanest girl in all the land.

2010-10-07T08:52:00.000-06:00

Guess what I did last night?

Took a bath. In my own house. Yes.

There's still a little work left to be done before the bathroom is finished, such as install the vanity, install the medicine cabinet, put power to the tub so the jets operate, seal the tile on the shower, hang the shower curtain rod, buy decorations, etc. But it is done enough that I can take a bath!

I am pretty sure when I get off work today, I am going to take a bath. Before I go to bed tonight, I'm going to take a bath. Tomorrow will probably be the same.

On a non-bathroom related note, this Sunday marks our one year anniversary. We survived a whole year, complete with broken cars, too many trips to Home Depot, restaurant dates, nursing school, and of course, those first months when we lived with my old roommate and then my parents. To celebrate, we are spending a weekend in Park City.

Back to the bathroom stuff again, I am excited because we still have a hundred bucks or so left from wedding presents people gave us (go us and saving money!) and I think we might use that money to buy a painting in Park City, if I can find one I like, to go in the bathroom. We don't really have the money to buy art (everything on my walls now is either stuff I revamped or made or frames bought for the wedding reception) so it will be kind of nice to try and find some art that I want, not that I found on the clearance rack and "will work."

Coffee love

2010-10-04T09:42:00.000-06:00

I've been secretly hoping that the next blog post I did was going to be the big reveal of the most-anticipated bathroom remodel ever.

But alas, it is not true.

So rather than post nothing in great anticipation of the day I can blog about how wonderful bathing at my own house is, I will chose some random thing to blog about since there is nothing going on in my life right now besides that damn remodel.

(P.S. Did you know I haven't showered in my own home for two months? Peed in my own toilet for over a week?)

I have an extreme love/hate relationship with coffee. I love it. Yes, yes I do. I love the warmth of a big cup of coffee, the taste of it's syrupy, sugary goodness, and the little caffeine buzz afterwards that makes me feel like I could probably write at least three more stories or put two more loads of laundry back in their place in my closet.

However, I have had this little stomach issue for the last 5 or 6 years. It's crazy to me that it's been that long, but it has. I had acid reflux disease, irritable bowel syndrome, the works. Today, it is SO much better than back then. But symptoms still like to surface every once and awhile just to remind me that the acid reflux is still there, just waiting for me to eat the wrong food.

Coffee is one of those consumables that wreak absolute havoc on my body. Like seriously. Havoc.

I have learned, however, there are certain times I can enjoy coffee. Generally, it has to be done in a food layering process. Gotta munch on some cereal or something at first, then drink coffee, then follow up with a little more food. Layering process. This has been fairly successful in my life thus far.

However, that whole bathroom remodel thing is even cramping my coffee-drinking style. I am absolutely paranoid that the coffee will make me sick, and I'll have one of those moments where I need to use the bathroom NOW, and I won't have one. And I'll be driving to my nearest grocery store like a crazy women and sprinting into their facilities. Now, that would just be embarrassing.

GRE

2010-09-27T10:39:00.000-06:00

It's official: I've taken the first step in going back to school.

In a little more than a month, I'll be testing to see whether or not I am smart enough to go to graduate school. We'll see how that goes.

And then, of course, I have to be accepted into the program. I am applying to Weber State University for their new masters of communication program. The program is designed for working professionals, which was an absolute must considering I can't really quit my job and I don't really want to because who knows what the job market will be like in two years or if the position I leave will even exist, must less be vacant, when I get the whole grad school thing out of my system. Nothing is worse than an unemployed grad school graduate.

Getting accepted kind of scares me. I think, in general, I am pretty smart. But not smart enough to think that perhaps I would one day want to go to grad school and that I should make sure my grades reflected that possible future life decision. I didn't even think grad school was a possibility until after I graduated college. By then, I had gotten some C's, even a D (Thanks meteorology) and, while my GPA is grad school acceptable, I'm not sure how competitive the program is.

So we'll see. Hopefully the next time I address this topic, I will be saying "YAY! I got accepted to grad school!" Not "Who needs grad school anyways?"

It's kind of scary, worrying if I can juggle work, house, husband, schooling, life, and all of that. But then I remember my senior year in college when I ran a newspaper full-time and took 20 credit hours. And I didn't die. And I even graduated. That's badass.

Multiple personalities.

2010-09-20T13:50:00.000-06:00

This is how I usually see Luigi when he is just with people or with me. This dog sleeps all the time. Or just lays around. He is so chill and relaxed and loves sitting on the couch or the chair and taking naps.

This is how Luigi is when he is around other dogs. See that blurry brown spot on the left? Yes, that is Luigi. (The dog on the right is Sammi, Clay's dog). He LOVES jumping and playing and biting and running around and being a wild dog. He never stops. It's like a total split from his lazy personality he has at home.

Stolen from Ashley's blog

Here is Luigi with another troublemaker, Dex (Ashley and Josh's dog). I'm surprised you could even get them to sit still and away from each other long enough to take a picture. These two are even worse because Dex is not a puppy like Sammi is, so there destruction is increased by Dex's size. On Saturday, these two knocked over a water bucket, then proceeded to roll around in the mud. When Josh hosed them off and separated them until they dried, the dogs went right back to the wet mud and rolled around some more.

So, my dog may have multiple personalities. But at least he gets along with everyone. He's never been mean to a dog or a person, so that's always a plus.

I have the most bizarre phone conversations.

2010-09-17T12:46:00.000-06:00

So, part of the job of a journalist entails editors calling you once (or several) times a day every so often to verify facts, ask questions, or just double-check stuff. This is always after your shift is over, and usually in the most awkward settings.

I've answered phone calls during family dinners and parties. Once, I was called over the weekend when I was busy gambling and gallivanting in Las Vegas.

But, every so often, I am in a random public place where people can hear me speak and I always think they must think I am insane.

Phrases I have said to various editors whilst in public.

"The males are juggalos, the females are juggalettes. And together they are Juggalos."

"There was blood on him before they shot him, but they didn't know if it was his blood or someone else's"
Yes, I've verified facts on guys who had their throats slit, people who's houses have burned down, a few car accidents here and there. I am an encyclopedia of details dealing with the latest and greatest in crime in Northern Utah.
I just really wish I could explain that to people when they eavesdrop on the weird phone conversations I have.

I hate crowds.

2010-09-15T10:12:00.000-06:00

I love music. I love concerts. I hate crowds.

Nothing is more annoying when attending a concert than the smell of sweat, body odor, and crappy weed. Then a huge group of people think they are somehow going to just slip between the cracks of people or just push you until you oblige and let them in front of you. Never mind that you have been standing in a hot mess of people for an hour waiting for the band to start, and these people just arrived. Then, of course, they pull out their pipe and their swag and light up and talk about how laaaaaaaaaame their fourth period teacher is.

And, I hate crowd surfers. I generally pay a generous amount of money to go to a concert because I am genuinely interested in watching the bands that I paid for. Not to get kicked in the face by some crowd surfer. I hate crowd surfers because I have to actually pay attention to what is around (and flying around) me rather than focusing my attention on the show that I paid to attend. Plus, the average crowd surfer is about my size or larger so when they land on my head, it is no easy task to keep this person afloat in the sea of people. I generally find the biggest person (hopefully someone I know) within 10 feet of me and stand ridiculously close to them as to avoid the need to hold up some obnoxious crowd surfer.

Or, if you are attending a different type of concert, you have the sing-a-longs. Nothing was more annoying to me than stupid girls singing along during the Regina Spektor concert. Granted I was edgy because I had the flu (no way was I going to miss Regina) but. seriously. What makes you think people would enjoy hearing you sing to her songs while she is singing them? Mind-boggling.

But I keep going to concerts because despite the fact that people's intelligence takes a nose dive when they gather in crowds, I love live music, I love jumping and dancing around, and I don't even mind standing in a crowd -- until they get obnoxious.

Stress!!!

2010-09-13T09:07:00.000-06:00

Haven't updated in awhile, probably because life has been a little stressful. Seems like it always is when school gets started, but this time it seems more stressful. Probably because Kelly's crappy car broke again. And the bathroom remodel is still not finished. And we can't find the right pieces (that we can afford) to finish the bathroom. And Kelly is trying to do schoolwork, while I just sit around and catch up on Dexter because there isn't much I can do to help him. And I have had constant, pounding headaches for the past week.

So what to do? Most of these issues are still unresolved, which makes them that much more stressful.

After looking at replacement cars we could afford while mainly surviving on a journalist's income, Kelly decided he wants to fix the car. Which is still parked at Wal-mart where it broke down about 5 days ago.

Bathroom remodel should be (fingers crossed) finished in the next week, week-and-a-half. I hope. I pray. Our main issue is stupid tile edging. It's expensive, and the one that we found and liked, of course, has been discontinued. I discovered this when I was sent on a mission to find 29 more pieces of non-existent tile.

The headaches are actually caused by a sinus infection (thank you, Google, for a proper diagnosis) so I'm on the antibiotics now to get rid of it. So that is one nice thing about all the stressors.

Seems like life is coming at us full speed, with no relief in sight. *sigh*

day of relaxation

2010-09-03T09:27:00.000-06:00

I think more people should have more "me" days. Going and doing something you love to do, just by yourself. I think many people would feel stupid or silly going to dinner solo or going to a movie by yourself. But it is pretty relaxing.

Yesterday, I had a Jessica afternoon. Yep, only an afternoon because I had to work and go to a family dinner with my in-laws, so you do what you can.

For my personal day, I did the things I love most. First, I drove to Salt Lake City (I got lost -- not a good start to relaxation afternoon) but ended up at a spa school that has discounted treatments. ($35 for an hour back facial including massage?? Sold.)

After that hour, I drove along State Street headed to the Gateway to do a little shopping, and remembered that my favorite brewery was along the way. I picked up a few new beers, and headed along my day. My shopping afternoon was completed with a little frozen yogurt, and I was relaxed and ready to head home.

Massage, beer, shopping, food. Successful afternoon.

However, I must say, relaxation afternoons can quickly be dampened by stressed-out husbands who are coming down with the cold you gave him, remodeling a bathroom, and attending nursing school.

He needs a personal day too.

super blessed.

2010-09-01T09:55:00.000-06:00

When you hear news like this, I think there is a bunch of emotions involved.

First, I feel terrible for so many journalists out of work in Utah, in an already not-so-hot market. Example: how many reporters have been hired by my employer since I was last June? One. Who was hired last July.

Second, I feel so blessed. It's selfish, but true, there is such a sense of relief that I am not employed at a place that (as far as I know) is seeking layoffs and ridiculous restructuring.

Third, (and this must be said with the pretext that I have no plans on looking for other employment) this is going to just destroy the job market for journalists in Utah. There are few positions available now, must less after the 80-something qualified journalists are left grappling for jobs to support their families. I hope many of them can stay doing what they love, and aren't force to find something else because there simply isn't enough work for journalists.

But, most of all, I just feel terrible that the layoffs happened, that the newspaper feels the need to fire people with the sugar-coating of "going in a new direction." It's a sad time for print journalism in Utah.

I'm a hipster, baby.

2010-08-30T13:17:00.000-06:00

Oh, hipsters. Remember when I wrote about my "love" for them?

So, there is this free concert series in SLC every year, and it is just crowded with the hippest of hipsters. Like unbearable hipster numbers. So, during one of the concerts, I got a genius idea: Let's all dress up as hipsters!!

Observe:

Hipsters love to pretend they have mustaches. Why???

Headband? check. Peace sing necklace? check.

Mustached men.


Hipster geniuses.

I would consider this event a hipster success. Now, I would like it to be known that I am, in fact, a kind person. I generally would not condone making fun of people because of their wardrobe choices. However, my rationalization is this: Hipsters are well-known to defend that they are NOT hipster. They are unique, different, just being themselves. So therefore, we are truly offending no one because no one actually admits they are hipster. Problem solved.

A milestone.

2010-08-27T11:11:00.000-06:00

The tub is in people.

Yes, that is right, we have emerged from the deconstruction-plumbing-and-wiring-stage to the rebuilding of what once was the bathroom.

I went to a friends house Wednesday to catch up on Weeds (you think I would just break down and buy Showtime considering I am in love with many of their shows ... but, alas, I just bum off my sweet friends) and I came home and IT WAS THERE.

The tub was sitting in its spot in all its jetted glory. It's not functional, but I don't really care. It's symbolic that there actually is another side to this damn remodel, and it is glorious baths with tile flooring and a perfectly angled canned reading light.

And going to the bathroom with a door. Yep, as of Wednesday, the door and frame were removed so the tub could fit in. So if I have company in my house, I simply don't go the bathroom. And I just manage to yell at the husband and dog every time I need to use the facilities otherwise.

More updates to come, and perhaps I won't be lazy and you may even get a photo! Better than cell phone quality! This in and of itself is the real milestone.

Bathroom update.

2010-08-24T09:55:00.000-06:00

My little weekend project turned into gruesome month-long overall.

Bathroom remodel SUUUUCKS. Bathroom remodel with only one bathroom in the house? TOTALLY SUCKS.

Lucky for me, the toilet is still in working condition. However, the bathtub is literally sitting in my shed. The shower head is currently a maze of pipes and hoses that I do not understand.

People ask me how the bathroom remodel is going? When will it be finished? I have no freakin' idea. The latest and greatest is that my father-in-law and dear husband installed a canned light over where the tub will go so that when I take the month-long bath that will be required once this bathroom is finished, I can read or shave my legs or do nothing while having perfect lighting.

Don't get me wrong. I am SOO grateful for this. Grateful to good old Uncle Sam who gave us the monster tax return to fund the bathroom overhaul. Grateful for my husband and father-in-law spending hours everyday working on getting this thing done. Grateful for all the random friends (and especially my parents) who are letting me bum showers from them everyday. I'm definitely not complaining about any of that. While this situation is stressful, it's only temporary and I am definitely not taking it for granted.

Spring Chicken.

2010-08-16T11:48:00.000-06:00

I had just turned 20 the first time I stepped into the newsroom where I currently work.
I was young, oh so young.
I am still young -- you don't grow up much in 2.5 years -- and I know it.
My coworkers who are ... a bit older than me ... find it entertaining to ask me if I ever knew about this TV show or this music band or this style from way back when.
Have I ever seen the Mary Tyler Moore show?
Ever catch an episode of MASH?
Listen to any Carpenters songs?
Did you know we used to write with typewriters? Had bonuses? Christmas luncheons?
These are all now a thing of the past.
While I find it interesting to bridge the gap between the ages (I get to inform on such subjects as why dial-up internet is no longer cool, what a tweet is, and how to add friends on Facebook) I sometimes wonder:
Am I going to be like that one day?
Will I look at the doe-eyed twenty-something reporter who isn't even born yet and ask her if she's ever heard of Lady GaGa? Has she ever seen Lost? Did she KNOW who Beyonce was?
The sad part about this scenario is not that the young reporter will probably roll their eyes at me and then teach me why Twitter is so 2010, it's that our current culture and pop music and television sucks really bad. I am going to be embarrassed when the good old days consist not of awesome hair bands or rock and roll but of auto-tuned voices and people making love in the club.

Judgment.

2010-08-12T08:47:00.000-06:00

I am a blog stalker. I realize this, I can fully admit it. I think it's interesting to read blogs about friends of friends or who other people read or whatever.

In my blog stalking moments, I have come across a couple of things. I am not at all like some of the bloggers I have encountered. Thank God. And many bloggers are the most close-minded people.

I have encountered some of the most judgmental people blogging in Utah. I don't know why, I don't want to say religion plays any part in it, but I don't know. All I know is they are Northern Utah bloggers.

I don't want to go into to much detail in case those I stalk actually stalk me back (eek!), but these ladies need to get a grip. One girl I read about commented on some wedding. The couple lived together previous to the wedding. She asks, "If a couple already acts married, why does everyone make a big deal about them getting married?"

I understand that people's values and ideals on relationships and how they work differ. I personally did not want to live with my husband before I got married. But those that do make that choice deserve to celebrate their wedding day just as much as you do. Just because they cohabit does not mean that their moment of promising lifelong commitment, their celebration of the love they have for one another, is any less important than the love that you share. A wedding day is not just the day where you are given the OK to live together and start a life together. A wedding day is a day to celebrate love, to celebrate a commitment.

So do these people deserve less happiness than you? Less of a celebration? NO.

Another blogger wrote about divorce. Obviously, no one is going to be pro-divorce. Like "Yeah, you go and get married, and if you don't like it, just bail out! No big deal." But this blogger took it to an extreme, saying that divorce is a choice that weak people make when they don't want to work things out with their spouse. How she tries not to, but looks down at those who are divorced because they didn't have the strength to make it work. Oh, and they probably should have thought harder about their spouse before getting married and not make such a stupid decision.
Really?
Again, here I am offended by a situation that is not even relevant to me because these people are just being so close-minded.
Marriage isn't easy. Anyone can tell you that. There are days when you want to give up. But you don't.
But if it comes to the point where you are filing papers, does that make one weak? Does that make you less of a person because you made the decision that your situation just isn't working?
Does it make you stronger to live in a destructive marriage your entire life or to get out of it and make your life better?
Things can not just be taken at surface level. Their marriage isn't like my marriage which isn't like your marriage. People are different, and sometimes options are limited.

Like I said earlier, none of these situations apply to me. But, I mean, C'mon, ladies, can't we do a little better than this? Can we write our opinions without attacking those who may have a different value system than you do?

confession.

2010-08-11T08:59:00.000-06:00

Sometimes you feel a delusional intimacy with the blogging world. Like I could tell my bloggers anything, and it'd be like our little secret.

So here's a confession.

I am a trash TV junkie.

It's true. I love watching all the Bad Girls fighting each other. Nothing brings me more joy than watching the Situation and Pauly D promoting a grenade-free America. I watched intently as Jemmye and Knight hooked up, then realized they may *GASP* have feelings for each other. I even watched several episodes of Daisy of Love.

Daisy of Love, people.

It's my guilty pleasure, that's for sure. I don't mess around with the popular reality tv. The Bachelor? Big Brother? Survivor? Please, I'd rather watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

I realize some of you may have thought I was smart. Perhaps this confession makes you think twice. I don't know what it is, but these shows are just absolutely entertaining to me. It's not like I rearrange my schedule because certain programs are on (though Ashley and I are known to have a Bad Girl's Club dinner night) but I catch them when I can. I don't even DVR them. It's just chance that I can keep up with the terrible lives of trashy reality television.

Please don't judge me.

welcome home.

2010-08-09T08:09:00.000-06:00

My house is getting so many renovations lately, it's been so great!
First off:


My new front door!

Remember this post? Yes, I finally got around to painting my front door green. You can't really tell in this picture, but I chose that shade of green because the green brick in the house is also a similar shade, and I wanted the door to bring out those green bricks.
Now, I am thinking that I want/need to do something about the house numbers on the house. They are on there twice, and I don't like either one. I am thinking maybe replacing the poor painted-over ones above the door and removing the ones on the mailbox? I don't know, what do you guys think?

Moving on:


This is what my bathroom currently looks like.

I'm sure some people may have appreciated some "before" pictures of the bathroom. But it was so ugly and disgusting, it was not even worth a before pic. So, right now I am bumming showers off of anyone I am related to/friends in the Ogden area because we obviously don't have working facilities. (Yeah, that's the tub underneath all that debris if you couldn't tell)

But I just keep thinking how beautiful this bathroom is going to be:

Jetted tub. Pretty much my only request. I love taking baths and reading.
REAL TILE FLOORING! No more linoleum that is peeling up, no more rotten floors!
Beautiful cherry vanity complete with basin-style sink and granite countertop. (Thank you clearance section at Lowes.)
Did I mention no more mold? NO MOLD!

Granted, it is still small. Yes, that sucks. But we are doing what we can with the space. It's going to be awesome. I'll post pictures all along our little remodeling trip.

Another home-related note that I don't have pictures of yet... My grandpa, who is just awesome and an amazing woodworker, surprised all of us kids (me and Kelly, Shalee, and Chris and his new wife Ronnie) with homemade bedroom sets when we were out in Minnesota. My sister and I already had nightstands made for us in 2006 or 2007, so Grandpa made another nightstand to go on the other side of the bed and a huge dresser for each of us (or each couple.) They are seriously beautiful, and by far the nicest piece of furniture I have ever owned. I'll take pictures soon and post them so everyone can see how talented my grandfather is.

This ship may be leaking, but that doesn't mean it has to sink.

2010-08-06T13:18:00.000-06:00

This week has been one of those "what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here?" weeks.

I'm sure it's no shocker to hear that the print journalism industry is struggling.

We all know it. I live in vain, thinking that I am not the only person under 40 that I know that subscribes to a print edition of a newspaper. But I am pretty sure I am. Newspapers are just not 2010, Generation X-friendly.

When I entered college in 2006, journalism was still a viable industry. I mean, it wasn't booming, but when I started college, I didn't feel the need to weigh out whether this career would survive the rest of my career-life. Maybe I was naive.

In 2006, when deciding on my minor, I was debating between investigative journalism and web publishing. Ultimately, I decided to minor in web publishing because "That seemed to be the direction that the industry might go in." Now, 2010 me wants to take 2006 me and give her a big giant hug. Best college decision I ever made. That and graduating a year early. I don't think if I had waited until 2010 to graduate that I would have a job right now.

Now, as of today, I look at the print journalism industry, and I have no idea where the hell it is going. I have no idea if I will be or want to be employed in this industry in 5-10 years. It's scary for someone who is just starting in a career field that may be just coming to its end. I see many of my journalist friends, colleague's leaving to go to law school, to public relations jobs, to anything else just to leave this industry.

And where do I stand? When do I realize that something that I am passionate about is no longer a viable way to earn a living? When do I throw in the towel and jump ship before sinking to the depths of the unemployment pool?

Right now, journalism, I'm holding onto you. I'm willing to evolve, I'll go with you to a digital land where no newspapers have gone before. But this better be worth it.

Adventures of a puppy-mommy.

2010-08-04T12:18:00.000-06:00

Random anecdotes of dog ownership:

The other day we took Christian (nephew) and Luigi (dog) fishing with Kelly and Shalee. Luigi followed Christian around everywhere, but I think he loved it. On the way home, Luigi fell asleep, and Christian kept yelling at him, "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" Christian was also babbling to Luigi while we were there and the dog must have not been paying attention, because Christian wrapped his chubby little fingers around Luigi's nose, mouth, and eyes, and said, "LISTEN!!" over and over again. And my dog never resisted or nipped at Christian or anything. He is awesome.

People love puppies. Never realized that. Never realized the swarm of little girls that would follow me around whenever I took the pup to public events. Luigi had his picture taken at least 15-20 times at a festival I was at last night. I don't get it, why would you want a picture of a random dog?

Luigi is the shit. He has only peed once and pooped once in the house. He starts nibbling on a chair or blanket, and you tell him to stop it, and he never chews on it again. When he decides to walk (he is a very lethargic dog) he never pulls on the leash, he walks right behind you or right by your side.) He's always quiet. This is the coolest dog I have ever encountered.

In other news....
I actually don't think there is other news. My life is boring. Kelly starts school again in a few weeks. Hopefully he gets an LPN job soon. That's about all actually.

because I know you want it...

2010-08-03T12:01:00.000-06:00

More pictures of my puppy!!!

Fishing at Pineview

His first hike!

Luigi and my nephew Christian love each other!

At a party at my friend's house. Everybody loved him because he just laid in their laps and slept.

Not going to lie, this dog is awesome. He's so chill. And if he is chewing on anything and we yell at him to stop, he immediately does. And he only peed once (but ON MY MAKEUP) on the floor inside and pooped once on the rug. Not bad for a pup.

I realize this makes me the biggest hypocrite in the world.

2010-08-02T08:10:00.001-06:00

Remember that last post I did about not wanting a dog? Just right below this one?
Yeah.....
So look at this face:

Tell me you do not want to take this puppy home and love him forever. There were six of these puppies who were going to be euthanized by a local animal shelter, and a foster shelter place took them in.

Soooooooooooooooo.....

I got one.

His name is Luigi. He is between 8-10 weeks old. (They aren't sure.) And he is the chillest dog ever. He seriously just sits around and sleeps all day long. I'm actually haven't a hard time getting him to take walks because I take him outside on his leash, and he just lays down and chills out.

I realize this makes me a hypocrite. I realize I scoffed at all my friends who have gotten puppies in the last year. I realize all of this. I realize that this dog will be a lot of work, and that it will grow to be a huge dog.

But I think that this is the perfect way to overcome my fear of dogs. I think. I hope. God, I hope.

puppy love.

2010-07-29T10:24:00.000-06:00

You're either a cat person or a dog person.
I'm neither.
Yep. When it is discovered that I, in fact, do not like cats or dogs, people kind of think I am not a good person. Like I don't care about humanity or children because I don't enjoy animals.
But I promise you, I have a kind heart, there's just one thing:
I am petrified of these animals.
More so dogs than cats, but they scare me. Chalk to up to a terrible childhood experience, if you'd like. When I was a kid, I got bit or attacked by several dogs. All different kinds, some small, some large. So, at a very young age, I developed an extreme fear of dogs.
It has improved from since I was young, mostly because my family decided to get a family dog so I lived with an animal for awhile, but I am still really scared of dogs.
Many tell me this is an irrational fear. Because puppies are cute, and their teeth are small, or they really aren't that bad or whatever. But that does nothing to ease my fears, sorry dog-loving people of the world.
Several times in my life I contemplated getting a dog.
Then I remembered:
They shed. I'm scared of them. They cost a lot. They require care and supervision.

That's a lot of stuff not going in favor of me getting a dog.
As for cats, except for little baby kitties, there has never been an urge for me to get a cat either. For the same reasons listed above. And I have an unwarranted hate for cats after I've seen a few feral cats in my yard. Sorry to all the regular non-feral cats and their loving owners.

Pregnancy

2010-07-20T08:57:00.000-06:00

So, I live in Utah. And I'm married. And I'm a woman. So naturally everyone I encounter asks me when I am going to start having children.
And in response, I have created a list of things I can't do that will ultimately stop me from getting pregnant in the near future: (Not to mention the lifelong responsibility that I just can't even fathom right now.)

I can't drink alcohol. (worst #1 reason ever ... but hey, I like my beer and wine.)
I can't eat sushi. Or deli meats.
I can't smoke cigars or hookah. (Though I don't really do either much anymore)
I can't drink coffee.
I can't jump on trampolines. (This is of utmost importance.)

So, as you can see, I do not lead a lifestyle that screams "Pregnancy!!" Perhaps in a few years. Or like 10.

Hipsters.

2010-07-19T08:39:00.000-06:00

We all know one, or several. A hipster. One that adores random animals, lumberjack plaid, has a weird obsession for mustaches, and knows bands that you've never even heard of. They are ultra chic, dressed in 80's sweaters and things that went out of a style for a reason.

Ah, yes, the hipster.

I do not like hipsters very much. Why? Because they have this snobbish attitude that they, in all their hipster glory, are much better than the average human. I mean, c'mon, they eat organic, ride their bicycles through the city, and thrive on random moments. What's not to love about a hipster?

But seriously, their attitudes suck. Like they are all in on same random joke about why some ugly thing is cool, and everyone who is not a hipster is out.

Plus, they won't even acknowledge that they, in fact, are hipsters. They are unique, while everyone around them is hipster. No, not them, they could not possibly be hipster. They are just themselves.

((stole this from Toothpaste for Dinner))

Riiiight, you are a hipster. Now, please take off those ridiculous neon-colored sunglasses, buy some shoes that don't have holes in them, and take a shower. Please.