Almost 4 months now...

It's been almost 4 months since I wrote last. Here's the deal, getting myself to the clubhouse where there was free wifi was just annoying. And now, we have the internet. I know, I know, in my last post I got all preachy about living with less. In the last 6 months we've learned how necessary the internet really is in today's world. Internet access is almost as necessary as having a car. I kid you not. Here is a short list of the times Scott and I wished we had internet access:
*When searching for the cheapest and closest dry cleaning business
*When writing a talk for church on Sunday based on a general conference talk
*To look up recipes (I use this one a LOT)
*To view bank account information/ evaluate the budget
*To catch up on television shows...ok, not necessary, but still...
*When finding out the local library's hours of operation
*Paying bills
*When you have symptoms of something and you're not sure what you have (Scott got Shingles in April and neither of us had ever seen Shingles before)
*To communicate with family overseas
*Making travel plans to see family overseas (I went so far as to bring my computer to Starbucks during my lunch break at work so I could look up pricing on airfare and Scott and I went to the library twice to purchase tickets)
*To watch the super bowl

Although this list is not all inclusive, I think you get the point.

So, I will update you on the last 4 months via pictures :)

Our neighbor's car was parked, motionless, for several weeks during the dead of winter. The result was this AWESOME drooping blanket of snow.

Scott and I discovered that roller skating is totally cool, not just on retro night (pictured above) but every night.

I began baking bread from natural yeast. My sis-in-law invited me to attend a class with her and it was AMAZING.  Scott grinds the wheat by hand, I make and knead the dough, and sometimes it turns out like a brick...like this one. After all, the natural yeast is a living, breathing (yes, breathing) organism. It grows, I feed it, it "eats" the wheat, more bubbles form and it expands and I bake with it. I am a domestic goddess.

My parental units came to visit. We went to Park City during the Sundance Film Festival. We didn't see any movies or celebrities. (My mother-in-law is also pictured here on the back right) Park City is a lovely place and the festival is an excellent time to people watch.

We didn't have cable or internet during the Super Bowl so we went to watch it at our apartment complex's exercise facility :) Desperate times call for desperate measures and the 49ers were playing.

We purchased a Kirby Vacuum in February and Dinah does not care for it. The first time I turned it on, she jumped on the couch and hid behind the cushions. So pathetic and so adorable.

Scott decided that it would be really fun to host a family party at our place for Chinese New Year. We managed to cram a decent portion of the Moore family into our 742 sq. foot apartment. Scott's nieces even made a dragon head and we had a parade outside.

Everyone made lanterns and wrote their hopes for the new year on them which is apparently a tradition. :)

I also happened to have some silk robes that I made all the ladies wear. Here Andrea is with hers and her two beautiful girls (the dragon head makers)

Here is an image of said dragon. They made this bad boy all by themselves....so creative.

For Valentine's Day, Scott made me breakfast in bed. Good man.

We went to Lava Hot Springs with Scott's family. Bonnie and Steve got us a weekend there at this cool old school house, turned church, turned community center, turned vacation rental. Audrey is pictured here drawing on the HUGE chalk board in the gymnasium.

How cool is this? And sitting in the hot springs in freezing cold weather was actually really refreshing. The hottest pool at the hot springs is well over 100 degrees F. Piping hot! I felt like we were stepping back in time to the days when public bath houses were super duper popular. Having spent some time in Bath England and admiring the engineering of the ancient Romans I was impressed that hot springs are still such an attraction today!

Baby Burke watching something through the window. Had to capture it.

I was lucky enough to spend some time with these lovely ladies at my dear friend Karlee Evan's birthday party. My mama put this quilt together for Karlee and her new baby. I'm wicked proud of her for getting back on that sewing machine. She is also a domestic goddess.

Scott and I scored free tickets to go to a home and garden show in Salt Lake. I was mocking these folks for buying a HUGE telescope style flag pole (see that huge thing that man is carrying? Well, thanks to the telescoping feature it's going to be like...twice as tall as that once he places it in his yard somewhere). Well, after I took this photo I realized the irony of me mocking this patriotic couple when I realized the condition of my side view mirror. It's been that way since about July of 2011. Yikes.

I had a law convention to attend in St. George for work. My MIL just so happened to be down there that weekend also for her spring break (she teaches college English classes) and we stayed with her dear friend Hilda (who also loves and represents Melaleuca). We had a grand time.

Random random random. Who sells this kind of inventory in one store?!

Mama came to visit for 10 days during her spring break. She thought it might be too long but we loved it.

She had a blast on my bike ;)

We all went rollerskating to celebrate my cousin's bday. His wife made an awesome baseball themed cake pop cake. yummers.

Scott locked his keys in the car like 3 times in two weeks so I purchased him this little retractable key chain holder and made him clip it on his pants :)

We hit up The Living Planet Aquarium with my Mama, FIL, MIL, and nieces. It was actually pretty awesome.

My mother is such a lovely person. So beautiful. So fun. So kind. Love you mama!

Scott and I were driving up to Logan for Easter dinner and saw this trike on the back of this car. SO funny to me.

Lens flare :) Scott LOVES swingsets and he loves his nieces even more.

We adventured down to Price where Scott's sister and BIL live now. It's one of those tiny tiny Utah towns but contrary to popular belief, there is actually tons to do there. Small towns are growing on me.

We celebrated Scott's and Rob's birthdays together. Lexi made an AMAZING rainbow colored cake in the shape of a giant cupcake and it was kind of awesome.

Scott and I took his nieces Kate and Kenna to the Japanese festival. There were some cool things there. Lots of people dressed up as anime characters and it was SO crowded. The best thing at the festival? This kid's hair do.

As you can see, I have become a bread master. Look at that beauty. Too bad I forgot the salt in this loaf. I learned the secret to making it rise more: kneading for longer and putting WAY more muscle into it.

Scott thought this would be really funny.

I made tamales from scratch for Cinco De Mayo. We had dinner with my cousin Scott and his family. These bad boys were super tasty!

Dinah loves her bed, finally. We've had that thing since she was just a tiny tiny pup and she never laid in it before. Guess she likes it now.

I told my SIL I wouldn't post this picture to Facebook and I'm keeping my promise. I couldn't resist posting it here. We went down to Sigurd Utah (another tiny town) where Scott's Grandpa lives. He turned 85 this year and we had a big family party for him. Before the party we headed out for some "bunny bopping" don't worry, I didn't kill any bunnies.

Kenna laying down in the flowers cuz I told her to.

At Scott's uncles house they have the most awesome backyard playground complete with tire horse swing.

You might not be able to see this but scott is with two of his nieces and all three of them are wearing Mexican hats. Scotts is itty bitty :) silly.

Scott spoiled me and got me this beautiful leather bag for Mother's Day/ for work cuz my current one is falling apart. This is a Saddleback Leather Company brand bag and their slogan is "Your kids will fight over it when you're dead". These things have a 100 year guarantee.

Remember how last post we were still getting all situated and moving things in and minimizing? Well, we've made some progress. Old books sold back, electronics sold off, and feelin good.

Some people think that just because you live in an apartment you can't grow a garden. Those people are wrong. We got creative with containers cuz it was way cheaper and let's face it, it was way more fun!

The herbs aren't doing amazingly BUT, everything else is doing smashingly and we're rather happy about it.


That's about it for the recent past. Life is really quite wonderful.

It's 16 degrees outside...and I like it.

It has been over a month since my last post but let me explain:

We moved.

There. Doesn't that explain it? Well, in addition to moving Scott and I have decided to disconnect our home from TV and the internet for a little while.  The reasons for this are two fold:

1: to save money and
2: to, as my brother would say, "cut the fat" out of our lives.

We've been doing a LOT of that. As I briefly mentioned in a previous post, we want to minimize.  Scott and I are definitely making great strides in that department.  We donate to Deseret Industries pretty much weekly these days and it feels fantastic to get rid of all the excess stuff we're not using.  I'm also becoming familiar with KSL classifieds and posting some of our lightly used stuff to see if we can make some money off of all that.  The most coveted item so far appears to be the Magic Bullet.  Why on Earth do people love those things so much? Whatever...we got $35 bucks off that bad boy! (Sorry if you're reading this and you purchased that for us for our wedding...we received 3 of them as gifts...hot item apparently)

I'm running into this theme of minimalism everywhere I look.  I dropped by a book store in downtown Salt Lake after work one day and was completely drawn to a book called The 4 Hour Work Week. The guy who wrote it puts little quotes at the top of every section and the one I'm loving right now is this:

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone"

I interpret that to mean that literally, man needs to let THINGS alone.  It's not about spending less.  It's about having less/ consuming less and producing more.  It feels good to surround myself with the things that matter most.

That's my quick blurb for now.

Here's a picture of what our apartment used to look like before we began the process of minimalization:

 Here's the after....

 We're still aching to get rid of Scott's old cd player...it's really awesome if you want it...just too big for us

The Rents are in town this weekend.  A few of those things are their suitcases ;) yay one bedroom apartments.  Mama and Dad, thanks for being willing to rough it and sleeping in our living room!

xoxo

A Day in the Bay

Scott has Tuesdays off and I decided to take the day off also.  We planned to go to SF one more time, just the two of us, before leaving for Salt Lake.  The city is so beautiful during the holidays...most big cities I have been to during the holidays really do it well but, SF is my favorite. :) We set out for our adventure just after 10 this morning making a stop in my favorite bay area city, Lafayette, and boarded the BART (bay area rapid transit) there.

(I think I snapped this one mid conversation so that is why scott has this look in his eyes that says "really Michelle? A picture right now??")

We made a plan to hit up the area surrounding the Embarcadero. I love Pier 39 even though it's such a tourist trap. The walk from the bart station, down by the high end mall at the Embarcadero Center, and along the pier is nice.  As we usually do we casually strolled and stopped wherever we felt like. That's our style. We made it to Pier 39 and did lots of window shopping. I LOVE the shop "Lefty's" because it has fun stuff for left handed people....like me.  I was wishing their cups weren't so steeply priced.  $12.50 for a "left handed" cup.  When you see the picture you'll understand why it's for leftys but I still don't understand the price.  Jeez.

You can't see the back but it basically says Warning, if you're not left handed and you try to use this then you'll spill on yourself (see the little hole?!) I love it!

Then we wandered into a magnet store and I was looking for one of those retro looking ladies saying something cheeky like "Killing someone with kindness sounds like a lot of work".  Didn't find the perfect one for me but I found a few that I liked a whole lot.  I don't drink booze but I think the lady in this one looks like one of my mom's best friends, Jane.  This is also something she would probably say.

I really like the one below it too.  The bottom line was cut off but it says "Sometimes I wrestle with my demons. Sometimes we just snuggle." I thought that was pretty cute.

I also saw these little gems and thought "who in the crap actually purchases these and displays them on their refrigerator?" I don't know anyone who does. Do you?

They're cool I guess.  Growing up I was always more obsessed with the fake spills like glasses of milk and eggs and stuff. I thought it would be pretty cool to have that on the counter. Don't ask why. It's a kid thing I guess.

We splurged a little and decided to get a characture drawn.  I always have a knee jerk reaction to price. Scott has helped me see that when you're working with a trained artist you're talking about a lot more than just the product, it's the years and the time it takes to develop the skill and talent.  It was so fun to have this done:

Pretty good right? 

As this guy was drawing our picture we were sitting right by a carousel and these two older ladies were riding it together and having a blast.  I had to catch a picture.  Scott thought it was weird that I was taking pictures of strangers but I couldn't help myself.  They were so cute!

Ok...so you can't see them really well.  I was trying to be discreet. But imagine how cute they must have been :)

Here we are with a little photo op by the water:

Scott didn't like that I was in his shadow on this one. I still like it.

The sun was in my eyes. Scott kept counting and told me to open my eyes on 3.  We just couldn't get the timing right. I blame the iPhone. And besides, blue eyed people are more sensitive to light...or so I've been told...

I think we got it and BONUS: I'm a unicorn!!!

Best part of the day: Eating lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and sipping drinks from BENDY STRAWS!!! Score.

Are Scott and I the only ones who get excited about bendy straws?

We're pretty quirky. 

     I had a fabulous thanksgiving in sunny San Diego. I drove down, with my parents, on Tuesday so that we could spend the holiday with my brother whom we hadn't spent quality time with in a while. On our drive down we played a little game where we go around and say three nice things about everyone in the car. (Awwwww!) That started off the Thanksgiving holiday right! We were lucky enough to be invited to dine with my brother's girlfriend's parents and it was an absolute delight. They have a lovely home up in the hills. This was the setting for our evening:

I'm in love with their home. You can't see the view but it was awesome. We spent the evening enjoying delicious food and getting to know the Arteagas. I especially loved the stuffed zucchini (an Arteaga family favorite) and these pumpkin cupcakes, another family recipe. Ana's parents are from Argentina and we had a blast comparing US culture with that of Argentina. We talked about linguistics, told family stories, and politics.  It was lovely in every way.

I really enjoyed spending a few days with my brother. I've called him Pal for years now.  I'm not sure how that started but, he's my pal. I would do just about anything if he told me it was cool.  At least I always did as a child. We spent one day shopping and ended the day in La Jolla.  Such a beautiful place!

 Brent and Dad

 The scenery (I was enjoying the warm weather and sights of the ocean knowing I won't see a lot of that in Utah)

Me and Mama

Scott couldn't be there because he was working through the holiday. That's the restaurant business for ya. He insisted that we go without him. I'm grateful for his sacrifice so that I could spend time with Brent before we move to Utah. This Thanksgiving season I'm thankful for:
Family (I know, cliche...get over it): they've been so supportive of me and Scott as we step away from the college/ newly wed phase and move toward being real grown ups...I feel as though I'm not quite there yet but I'm close
Jobs: I've held 3 since April and I'm about to start the 4th. I'm planning to be at this next one for a while

Time to bust out the Amy Grant Christmas album. I'm sooooooo ready.

Announcement

Scott and I WILL find a way to make this happen.  Even if the law forbids it, we will figure out a way to live in a small house. It will be comfortable and it will be luxurious. It will have a mortgage we can pay off in WAAAAAY less than 30 years. I'm just announcing it now so that when small houses are the cool new thing we can say we did it before the masses. How hipster am I? Seriously though, this is just a fabulous idea and I had to share it.

Happy Holidays...already!

I guess the holiday season has arrived.  The major network stations are doing their "countdown to Christmas" style programming. Yay low-budget-made-for-tv-feel-good movies! Tis the season (already).  I know lots of friends that seem to get their panties in a bunch when stores begin putting Christmas decor out before Halloween. I've decided that I don't really care.  Snow men out in the aisles of Costco alongside the costumes? No biggie. Christmas ornaments sharing the same space in the store as the Halloween candy? Sure. Why not? I draw the line at the hanging of lights on houses and trimming trees.  Can this just wait until after Thanksgiving?  It seems like the Christmas decor comes out sooner and sooner each year.  I can imagine my future children scampering down the street with a Nightmare Before Christmas kind of scene.  Pumpkins, wreaths, and spider webs adoring each door step.

Speaking of Christmas lights...I made some out of paint samples. I was looking on Pinterest for paint sample crafts because I swiped a bunch from Lowes the other night.  I didn't see these lights so, I kinda did my own thing.  I used the brightest colors I could find, a clip art image to trace the shape, tin foil for the base of the bulb, and hot glue.  I have yet to adhere them to a chord/string but, here they are!

I will not be hanging them up until after Thanksgiving :)

Ok...ok....so, I guess my holiday rules are dumb because I sort of got a little too excited about getting Dinah a Christmas sweater at Safeway the other night.  I'm going to try to refrain from putting her in it until after Thanksgiving but it will probably be difficult.  She's just so darn cute!

Happy Wednesday to all and to all a good night.

I'm going to make this a regular thing

    This weekend I feel like I finally found my perfect cookie dough recipe. Bless! They are fluffy, moist, and chewy! Success! I'm what my grandfather would call a "domestic goddess". Seriously, he called my grandma a Greek goddess for years. Come to think of it, the cookies are not my only domestic accomplishment in the last week.  I'm going to brag:

1: hemmed Scott's pants
2: made Dinah a pillow for her kennel (complete with zipper so we can wash it)
3: home made pizza pockets/ hot pockets

This is the aforementioned pillow.

This is a link to the recipe for what seem to be the perfect chocolate chip cookies.  I used 2 sticks of real butter instead of 1 stick butter and one stick crisco.  I also used coconut flavored instant pudding instead of vanilla. Here ya go!

http://penniesonaplatter.com/2010/09/29/perfectly-puffy-chocolate-chip-cookies/


Domestic accomplishments. I'm awesome.