Little by Little

So I have this amazing, talented, beautiful, motivating, spiritual, strong friend.  Um yeah, she's incredible, I've always looked up to her, and tonight we were running and she brought up how she's been wanting to read Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon (the chapter on the olive tree) for some time, but it's one of those chapters where you're just like, "hmm I know what happens, it sometimes feels like a drag...maybe I'll just skim it real quick.." But no, she wanted to actually read it.  She went to the temple and there was a big wait, perfect for going deep into the chapter. :)  And then she turned to me and she said, "It's so cool, it really is true that you learn and catch something new every time you read the scriptures."  Then she went on to talk about the part where the master says not to cut off all the 'bad parts' of the trees at the same time, do it little by little and the tree will come out okay.  Do it little by little.  I LOVED THAT because today, that relates in so many ways.  For example, when we're wanting to change something, like a bad habit, we have to do it step by step, we can't all the sudden 'change'.  You start for instance, making small goals.  Another example is like for me, trying to be healthier, I can't just all the sudden be like, 'Now that I'm being super healthy, my body will change with the way it looks and with the way I feel, TOMORROW.'  Nope people, it takes time, I become healthy little by little and by taking the necessary steps for that to happen. With things taking time, and working little by little, it's like us striving for perfection, being like the Savior as much as possible.  We don't become perfect in one second, we work for it by doing things like reading the scriptures, attending church, praying, doing service, having charity, being kind, unselfish, etc.  Little by little and we become better and closer, and more like our Savior.  It's a change that can't happen in a day.

Isn't it great what you can learn from the scriptures!?  I love it and I love them.  The church is true!!!


P.S. I hope this made sense, I was so excited about it cuz I'm weird like that, but my thoughts get all jumbled and then I try to write it down, and just wow.  Hope it all made sense. :)  XOXO

Express. I am in love with EXPRESS.

I'm in love.  I AM IN LOVE WITH EXPRESS!!!!!!!!!!  I have an obsession for shopping there.  A HUGE obsession.  In love.  These are the things I bought tonight!!! Ah I'm in heaven in that store...

BEST JEANS EVER.  These are just a light version of the third pair on here. :)

I LOVE GRAY JEANS!!!  They're beautiful.

I've had this pair for awhile, I'm obsessed with them.  I think they were made for me..I'm just sayin.

This shirt is SO cute!!!  Lace lace lace, gotta love it.  Oh gosh.  

Got this shirt in black, oh my comfy and beautiful!  Love it, obviously. :)

You ALL need to go to Express.  I had these KILLER coupons for in there cuz it can be pretty pricey, but I got everything HALF OFF!!  Incredible I'm tellin' ya.  Sign up for their emails, cuz they give you some killer coupons!  Best. Store. Ever.

Holy Bananas!

I know I've posted pretty much everyday, but things keep happening and I just HAVE to post!  Today was pretty spectacular. :)  Started off with opening the store, which is my favorite shift :), I had a Zupas salad for lunch, I learned about finances and budgets and all that good stuff from my dear manager Trista who seriously knows EVERYTHING, and I love learning about that kind of thing because I want to be set for the future and know how to do everything!  I don't want to go into being completely independent, blind, ya know?  So that seriously was fun and good.   And then I got off work, went grocery shopping with Maddie, found Brittany some chewy sweet-tarts that she's been craving, but hasn't been able to find, made a beautiful dinner for us kids, took some back to work for my co-workers to try, came home and cleaned up the house, did my jobs, Maddie and I sang songs while we cleaned, went roller-blading, went to Farr's Fresh, made cookies, and I'm going to the gym after I post this!!   It's been a good day, huh?

Opposites

Today was quite eventful.  Many positives and many negatives.
We'll talk about the negatives first so you'll finish reading on a happy note. :)

NEVATIVES

• I went into work at 11am and my poor co-worker is soo very ill, every symptom she has makes it sound like she has pneumonia or bronchitis.  Not fun.  Her baby and husband have it too... :(  But we need her at work because only three of us work there, so we have an opener, a mid, and a closer. Anyway, she came in today almost without a voice, and was coughing up a storm whenever she tried to talk. At about 6 (I had an hour left), the girl that watches her baby while she's a work, called crying saying that the baby was throwing up his milk, it sounded like he couldn't breath, and she didn't know what to do.  So I told Brittany to go home, take care of herself and her baby, I would stay an extra 2 hours and close for her.  So the poor thing went home, I really think she needs her rest and she needs to watch her baby.  The baby is so sick that he has to have a breathing tube and everything!  That was definitely a sad part of the day. 
• Because I now had to stay at work until 9:15, Maddie had no way of getting home from her friends house at 7pm...which is when I was going to pick her up on my way home from work.  So we were stuck.  Maddie was frantically texting me saying HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET HOME!?  You can't, Taylor isn't answering, and my friend's parents are gone!  Yeah, that was fun.  Fortunately Taylor FINALLY answered his phone and was able to grab her.
• Also because I closed, I missed going to the gym with Emily. :( I went when I got home from work instead.  Which is still fine, but we weren't able to try our "hoist" machines.  Maybe tomorrow. :)
• I have an irrational fear of spiders.  Poor little Maddie does too.  I swear, her room has been infected lately.  4 days ago she came up in the morning complaining of a spider bite on her leg.  3 days ago, she complained about having ANOTHER spider bite on her leg.  2 days ago, when she climbed into bed, she FOUND the spider that had been attacking her the past two nights.  Taylor and I were  watching 24 when we heard her scream from her room.  It actually was kinda funny. :P  She screamed and as if we didn't hear it and she wanted to make sure we had, she screamed again.  Bahaha.  Luckily Taylor was a man and killed it for her.  But then tonight...oh gees tonight was terrible.  Maddie was going to bed, she screams and yells that she found a beetle on her floor. HOLY SICK RIGHT!?  We've never ever had bugs in our house, so this is kinda weird.  She stamps it with a shoe and currently the shoe is still sitting on top of the bug.  So then fifteen minutes later, we hear a petrified scream again!!  She yells, "SSPPPIIIIDDEEERRR"  Hahahaha Taylor and I were just crackin up, but he was starting to get annoyed because our episode was being interuppted, so I got up and I thought I'd have the courage to kill it for her, but when I saw it, I just could NOT do it.  I was wayy too scared, haha.  So I called for Taylor and he came and killed it, then kinda was put out about our scaredie-cat-ness, said he was not going to kill another one that night no matter what.  Maddie broke down about having to sleep in her room, so she's in bed with me tonight.  Poor thing I just feel bad cuz if I were her and had her room, I'd probably sleep in the farthest room from it!  SPIDERS ARE WASTY.

POSITIVES

• Today had a ton of happy moments too. :)  Like when I got my favorite salad of all time for lunch...Zupas Summer Chicken.  OH MY GOSH HEAVEN ON EARTH.  And I got a delish chocolate strawberry too.
• A lady raved to me about my hair, she begged for my hair-stylists number, which may not sound like a big deal, but I recently had it cut and it's a little short, I'm not LOVING it, so that meant a lot. :)  And then one of our customers, every time he's in the store, comments, "Hey movie star.  How you doin'?  You should be a movie star..you know that?"  And it's cute cuz he's like 70 and from Italy with a heavy accent.  :)  I love him.
• I GOT TO TALK TO MY MAMA TODAY!!!  I love her so much and I need her sooo much my goodness.  I go without any form of communication for ONE day and I breakdown about it.  She's such a blessing in my life!!  It was fun to talk for a bit.
• I GOT A LETTER FROM CAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Cutiest letter in the world, she's such a doll, I absolutely love her.  Can't wait to write her back, I've been letter deprived lately for sure!  
• Emily Budge asked me today if I'd run a half-marathon with her in November and I'm doing it!!!!!!!  AHHH!!  I'm soo out of shape right now, so it's gonna be so fun to get back into shape, and I'm taking a running class at BYU this fall, so that'll help kick my butt into shape too and get me used to the distance and such.  I CANNOT WAIT.  Oh and Taylor wants to do it too. :) I'm so excited.  13.somethin' miles, here Emilie comes!!! :) :)
• I get to snuggle with my cute puppy in bed. :)
• I get to open the store tomorrow, which means I get off early which means I have soo much of my day tomorrow to play!!! I think Maddie and I will go rollerblading. :)  And then I'll play with a friend. :)  Ah and I need to clean my room. :P
• Lauren told me today that Harmons carries my beloved Vitatops!!!!! :) :) :) :) :) :)  Can't wait to pick some of those up tomorrow.

Yep.  Today was full of happys and not-so-happys.  But I feel like it was such a good day!  The happys definitely outweighed the not-so-happys. :)  Night everybody, I hope tomorrow's a good day too!!  XOXO

80 Calorie Cookies, Whaa!?

I am a lover of cookies.  And I am a lover of chocolate.  The latter is one of my favorite foods, don't cha know??  Well I have a problem though...cause I'm keeping track of my calories right now, check out myfitnesspal.com :) and I can't afford chocolate. Or cookies for that matter...sad life, I know it.  But I had a craving today.  Well I always do, but especially today. :P   I just HAD to have something.  Sidenote:  I recently discovered my favorite cookie has 148 calories...in ONE stinking cookie!!!! :( :(  You can imagine my heart pains...148 per cookie just doesn't work for me.  That's as many calories in a whole serving of oatmeal, a whole serving of Special K WITH milk, that's like a 2-3 cups of delightful strawberries, and to burn 148 calories, I have to run on the elliptical for 15 minutes.  ALL FOR ONE COOKIE.  Okay that's my sidenote.  So anyway, back to my craving.  Since I had to have SOMETHING to satisfy my need for a chocolate cookie, I searched for a low calorie recipe online.  Totally found one.  80  calories. (http://lowcaloriecooking.about.com/od/desserts/r/chocmintcookies.htm) Not bad compared to my 148!!  And oh boy they looked pretty darn good, and it seemed like a pretty normal recipe!  Nothing weird was called for and the recipe only made 2 dozen. :)  So I printed it off and went to work in the kitchen.  After combing everything and in looking at the dough, it was a tiny little lump.  Like there was no way I could make 2 dozen out of it.  Literally they'd have to be cookies the size of my thumb.  So I learned a lesson today.. a sad lesson.  And it's this... anything is low calorie in you limit the portion.  It stinkin made 15 normal size cookies, not 24!!  Holy baby cookies if you get 24 out of that recipe!  I was mad.  Haha so I figured on myfitnesspal that each cookie is actually 105 if you make them normal size, still not as bad as 148, but I was ticked nonetheless, cause nobody eats baby size cookies!

Allie and I decided to take lots of pictures today!!  We went to the gully and to the Wetlands, hoping to get some good shots with the rivers and lakes and greenery.  We first stopped at the gully and it was SO HOT!!  My goodness.  Anyway we walked down and took some pictures by the river in a spot where it parts into several mini-rivers and there's thick trees and wow it kinda looks like the Sacred Grove!  It was beautiful.  We were walking around trying to find other good places down there and we found this one place, but there was a weird man across the river...he was washing out a black hat type thing..had a big backpack...kinda looked homeless.  Anywho, it was sketchy.  So we turned around and went somewhere else.  But it was gorgeous down there!  We got some good pictures for sure. :)  The Wetlands gave us some good backgrounds too!  It was beautiful with the lakes and the cute ducks and benches and things.  Anyway, we had fun.

After hangin' with Allie, I had to make dinner!  I have been wanting Shepherds Pie (some call it hamburger pie..) for sooo long.  I've never made anything with beef cause I'm kind of scared to cook with it because I always feel like I don't know how to cook it or I'll just mess it up, I don't know, weird fear, but I wanted to do this anyway. :)  So first, I could NOT find my mom's recipe for the life of me.  She has like 20 cookbooks, and holy cow, I just had no clue where to start looking for it.  Lucky guess though, I found it in the first book I looked in!!  WOO blessing, I know. :)  Oh gees it is such a good recipe.  This one I found online, but it's almost exactly like the one I made, but scratch adding the water to the beef, it's fine with just the onion juice :) http://lyndasrecipebox.blogspot.com/2009/05/hamburger-pie.html .  So super easy and low in calories as well!  :)  I made my very own mashed potatoes, which I've never done...mashed potatoes are OWNED by my dad, nobody else ever makes them since he is King over those. :)  And he's never shared his secret...so I was left to do whatever I thought I should do to make them smooth and lookin' okay.  Haha but I did it, they were pretty good too!  So I made my taters, set them aside, and I took out the ground beef and realized I didn't have an onion!!!  I had to go to the store for one flippin onion.  So I did.  Mmm the meat turned out good.  All it is is the ground beef, and chopped onion and then a can of condensed tomato soup.  YUM.  So first in the casserole dish goes the beef, then a couple cups green beans, and then mashed potatoes and a sprinkling of cheddar cheese and parmesan.  Cooked for 25 minutes. :)  Wow, I am a good cook you guys, cause it turned out amazing. ;) Just kidding I'm really not a good cook, so I'm very very grateful it turned out okay. :)

After dinner, the lovely Emily Budge and I went to the gym to exercise.  Needed to burn off those 100 calorie chocolate cookies I was having a cow over cause the recipe said they were 80...well again, 80 IF YOU EAT ONE THE SIZE OF YOUR THUMB!!   So yes, the gym.  Ran on the elliptical for 40 minutes, burned 500 calories :) :) and then Em and I wanted to conquer the ab machines.  And we did.  Holy cow mine are going to KILL tomorrow.  Also, I have issues...when we were doing left lifts, I kept getting charlie horses in my quads!  Weird right!?  My stomach should be burning like a fire cause I'm working it so hard, but no, instead my legs were, so I had to stop a lot and stretch them.  More bananas? I guess...  but I'm so excited to go to the gym again with her tomorrow, cause we're going to try out all the "Hoist" machines...they're so trippy.  Kinda hard to figure out, so we're excited to go together cause honestly you always feel less dumb with someone next to you laughing about it with you than when you're by yourself and you can't figure a machine out. :)  So that's what we're gonna do. :)

After I got home, Taylor and I watched an episode of 24. :)  SO INTENSE, I love it.  I miss watching Lost though...but we decided to stop because the seasons keep getting progressively worse if you know what I mean. :/  I wish there were more seasons of Prison Break!!  That show is seriously the BEST EVERR.  Oh gees, but we're back to 24 because we haven't finished all the seasons yet.  And it's good, just every season is basically the same...ya know?  Oh well, it's been like a year since we watched a season.  So I like it. :)  If you know of any good shows, we love the action, love the suspense, hate the dirty, any suggestions, please comment! :)

And that was my day.  It was a good one!!  Can't believe tomorrow's Thursday, this week is flying!!!

It's July!!

July is my new favorite month. Anybody know why?? ;)

Anyway... the parents are gone for the week on a cruise...jealous a little?  I know, me too.  So I'm the mom right now!  Taylor and Maddie are so good though, always cleaning up after themselves, getting their things done, and then keeping themselves busy.  But today our plans are as follows:

• Lunch at the delightful Fongs Chinese Restaurant in Draper
• Taking the Tobes into the gully for a little hike
• Making lunches for a picnic that we'll have at a park
• Rollerblading and frisbee
• The picnic
• Games and the Wii at Grandmas house
• Watching the fireworks from Grandmas deck on South Mountain. 
• Me and Toby havin' a sleepover in my room like we always do. :) :)

It's a good day!!
Hmm right now I'm chillin' outside in our backyard on the deck with Toby on my legs and we're both soaking in the fresh air that smells of honeysuckle and flowers. :)  I love summer, can I just say that?  Mmhmm.  Taylor mowed the backyard yesterday and oh it is so beautiful.  And we got new bark put in this week, and you know how wonderful new bark looks in a yard?  YEAH it looks dang good.  I love where we live. :)

Okay Taylor wants to go to lunch now.  I don't blame him!  He ran 13 miles today and hasn't eaten yet!  Gee whizzles, so I best be goin!

Loves!!

Oh Life

I am so stinking excited about starting this blog!!!  I'm just kinda getting some weird thrill from this, haha. :)  Enjoy hearing about my lovely life!