The Miles

Too Good

2012-02-14T08:19:00.000-08:00

Just watched the latest episode of Downton last night and I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything that happened!!! Amazing. And I couldn't resist this Valentine, just switch wine for Diet Dr. pepper with fresh lime and I'm there (and Brody for Romeo of course). Happy Valentine's Day all!

June-uary

2012-02-13T10:56:00.000-08:00

It's been incredibly warm here lately. It's snowed once this winter (that I can remember) and for the past few weeks the temperatures have mostly been in the 50's and 60's.....there was even one day in 70's as you can see from the pictures below. Today was actually quite cold but the sun was shining like a champ, and it's making it that much harder to be indoors all day under the flourescents. Blerg. I even took a photo of the enticing sunchine pouring into my cube through the window of a nearby office. It's so strange to live in a city where there are flowerbeds in bloom in January. It's giving me all kinds of ideas about the spring and summer....but more on that later :)

Oh to have an office with a window...or just an office.

Fantasyland Friday: Kid/Teen rooms

2012-02-10T11:44:00.000-08:00

I think kid's rooms would be some of the most creative and just plain fun to design and decorate. Trying all kinds of colors and patterns and veering off the comfortable path of neutrals. My dream home, in phases would have at least two kid's bedrooms with a Jack and Jill bathroom in between. And at some point in time there would have to be some bunk beds because my sister and I had them growing up and some of my favorite memories are playing in our fort underneath the top one, sneaking up into her bunk in the middle of the night when I had a scary dream, and of course jumping and climbing on them all the time. There is a lot to be said about sharing a room.

Pink and White and Red All Over

2012-02-10T10:36:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is right around the corner and I'm not sure what's in store this year as Brody and are both nursing the tail ends of our coughs. Either way it's a great excuse for some pink and red colorblocking and hopefully some flowers :)

Sickies

2012-02-05T16:47:00.000-08:00

I haven't been sick in a long time. As in, I can't really remember the last time I actually got sick-sick, but I 'm confident it was before or when Brody and I were living in our first apartment. Bristlecone, a gem of a complex in Holladay Utah that is one of the last things in the universe you can't Google because the management is just that lazy. It was a dump, but a cheap dump, and it worked for our first apartment. We had a severe mold issue in our bathroom, our garbage disposal would break after every use, and when the Qwest guy was installing our internet he told me that the apartments hadn't changed a bit since he and his wife lived there when they were first married.....in the 70's. It didn't even have a smoke detector, which is absolutely illegal, and I cringe a little bit now, knowing that we now pay three times as much rent as we did then, but with all its faults, there was a silver lining to living there, (and not just great stories to tell our children someday when they whine about their crappy college apartments).

Through some combination of the mold spores, 20-year-old carpet, and I can only assume asbestos in the walls, our immune systems got pretty strong living there...kind of like when someone lives in a third-world country for a few years. We could hold sick nieces and nephews, work in the nursery at church, and eat Betos without ever getting sick.

But alas, the streak is over, and we've basically been lounging around in our pj's and sweats all weekend watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix. Both of us with sore throats and coughs, scratchy man-voices, and wishing it was the Ravens vs. the 49's.

Fantasyland Friday: The Guest Room/Suite

2012-02-05T09:37:00.000-08:00

At the request of my dad, "Where's my room going to be?" this Friday's post will feature the guest room. I'm not 100% sure how I want this one to play out... ie two twin beds or a Queen? There are pros and cons to each. Either way, it would have to have a few keys elements, most of which I'm stealing from Alice Lane's recent post in the same vein: Some kind of bench or seating at the foot of the bed where the guest can put their suitcase and unpack. Perhaps a desk where they can write emails, work, or put on their make-up, and of course a beautiful mirror to make sure they are refreshed after their trip. Close proximity to a bathroom is always appreciate when I stay with someone and since it's fantasyland, let's just go ahead and add an en-suite bathroom to the list :)

50 Days

2012-02-02T11:26:00.000-08:00

Until The Hunger Games movie opens, and to celebrate they've released this new trailer.....I'm still not sure how I feel about everything, but I do love Lenny Kravitz as Cinna.

Also, Happy Groundhog's Day. I'm not really sure what the point of this 'holiday' is, or how it even earned the right to be called a holiday for anyone living outside of Punxsutawney, PA, but why not right? It's a good excuse to watch a classic Bill Murray movie.

Cinemagraphs

2012-01-31T13:33:00.000-08:00

I was introduced to .gif's or cinemagraphs a couple of month ago by my friend who's roomate actually knows how to make them. They're amazing. The subtler, the better in my opinion. So Harry-Potter-moving-photos-magical...

Fantasyland Friday: The Dining Room

2012-01-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

Okay so it's actually Monday, but all the more reason to escape to fantasyland right?

Some of my favorite memories from holidays and birthdays are of conversations and meals at my parent's giant oak dining table. Call me a traditionalist, but I still love the idea of a formal dining room. No TV in the background, no distractions, just delicious food and fantastic conversations.
I've had an unhealthy crush on this salvage wood pedestal table from Restoration Hardware for a while. I've even blogged about it before... I definitely want a pedestal table (no legs to have to maneuver around and can seat more people if needed), some oversized drum shades or lantern pendants, and taller wing-backs at the heads of the table. I would love to have upholstered chairs, with easy-wash and no-iron slipcovers of course :) Why upholstered? Well, it really comes down to my chipped tailbone, which I got from razoring down the gully by my parents house in high school with my friends. As anyone who's seen it can attest, it's super steep--we were pretty smart.

That Awkward Moment

2012-01-27T09:47:00.001-08:00

When the suspected thief shows up wearing a sweatshirt exactly like the one that went missing...

So....the girl that we've suspected all along showed up last night wearing the sweatshirt that she stole from the little boy, errr I mean a sweatshirt exactly like the one that went missing the night that everything was stolen. He confronted her about it immediately and she went ballistic on him and said it was her sweatshirt. So, trying to be objective mediators we took them both in a room to talk. Apparently, the little boy's grandma usually puts his initials on the inside of all his clothes so we asked her very nicely if she wouldn't mind taking off the swetshirt so we could check if it had has initials on it...
it didn't go over so well.

She absolutely refused, went a little crazy, and ended up storming out of there swearing up a storm and saying she was never coming back.

It was just a tad awkward and uncomfortable for me. I was pretty bummed last night about the whole situation, mostly for her little 2-year-old daughter. It's just a lose-lose situation. I'm kind of relieved that we confronted her, but mostly just sad.

Wait, is that......?

2012-01-25T16:58:00.001-08:00

Now I must say that I do not regularly watch The Bachelor because it is all that is wrong with female-kind. However, when I heard that they went to Park City for the last episode, I was curious so I Hulu'd it. But honestly, all I could think about was how much the guy looks like Nadal. It's eery.

Park City was beautiful though, it made me miss it. Especially knowing that Sundance is happening right now without me :(

The Chicken and the Egg

2012-01-23T11:00:00.000-08:00

I've been in one of those "ehhhh" funks for the last week or two. Not sad, not unhappy, just blah. I'm not sure why... it just feels like I have no motivation right now. To borrow a phrase from Office Space, "It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care." I'm not sure why I've felt this way, I just do. And it's kind of a vicious cycle, I'm blah because of the mundane, but the mundane persists because I'm too blah to break out of it, did that make sense? It's the chicken and the egg.

But I do care. I do care that I'm healthy and exercise more than once a week. I do care that I have clean clothes to wear tomorrow. I do care that we eat a home-cooked meal every now and then (I think). But when I get home from work, after having to care about so many other people's issues and take care of them, sometimes there just isn't any left for me. It's so easy to just care about it tomrorow. Sure, I could go do a few loads of laundry and wash those dishes and vacuum and got through the mail and run on the treadmill and a million other things...or I could just put on my sweats, cuddle up next to the space heater with Brody and watch the shows in our Hulu queue. Gee, that's a real hard decision.

I'm going to go ahead and blame this funk on a few outside influences--because I'm an American and why would I take responsibility for my actions?

First: It's winter. I think a fair portion of this blah can be blamed on SAD, and the fact that it looks like 10 pm every night when I get off work. And it's been rainy and cloudy and actually snowed over the weekend, so we haven't seen the sun in a while.

Second: It's winter. And it's really cold, and getting up to do all the things on my list means not being wrapped up in a quilt.

Third: The whole getting robbed by someone who we've spent months and months helping. That was just a downer, and not super easy to recover from. Especially when they have the stones to show up again last week. It was the second most uncomfortable situation I've ever been in.

Fourth: It's winter.

Fifth: South Carolina. Really?! Gingrich?!? REALLY????!!!! The man is the epitome of a Washington-insider, d-bag who has cheated on every wife he's had, and got paid craploads from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Yes. That Fannie and Freddie that ruined the economy a couple of years ago. But you're right South Carolina, he's really good at dodging debate questions and re-directing focus away from his HORRIFIC track record and reputation and all-around UNELECTABILITY in a national election. No, you're totally right. Way to be smart. You just went with the candidate that Sarah Palin endorsed. Yeah.

Sixth: The new responsibility. I'm going to be vague here, but let's just say I inherited a new, big, responsiblity at work from a girl that quit at the New Year, and it's trying my patience pretty bad.

But really, the answer to the whole chicken and the egg question is that a circle has no begining. So I just need to make a sharp left and jolt myself out of it.

And I have a plan to kick-start my motivation. I've given myself a rule that I can't buy any new clothes until I'm back on the daily (or at least tri-weekly) exercising wagon. Any time I feel frustrated at work, I just think to the future and how this stupid issue has absolutely no bearing on mine (that's why I don't get paid the big bucks). The thief will pay eventually and it will be sweet vindication when they do. As for the whole winter issue... I can't exactly fix that, but I can daydream about spring and scroll through beautiful, sunny photos on pinterest. I may even make myself a list of resolutions (because I definitely didn't at the New Year) tonight for Family Home Evening (which is also something that will be on the list, because we seriously struggle with it----i.e. we've never had one). And if you have any bright, inspiring ideas-- please do share :)

Hurry

2012-01-21T15:16:00.001-08:00

If you "like" LOFT on facebook you can get $50 off your $100 or more purchase but it's today only! So really if you do it right, you can get half off.

I may have bought these....they are essentially my blog header in clothing form and perfectly me.

Typical

2012-01-19T18:52:00.001-08:00

Oh ya know just your typical street parking signs here in the city...

Not confusing at all, right?

Fantasyland Friday: The "Me Time" Room

2012-01-19T18:51:00.000-08:00

I think we all have that one dream room that we'd LOVE to have someday. The craft / laundry / mom office room where you can start a project and leave it unfinished without having to clean up. Where you can keep all your wrapping paper, ribbons, art supplies, cards, party decorations, DIY projects, scrap-booking stuff, and everything in between. With a huge island where you can fold clothes while watching tv or lsiten to music, with slots for individual laundry baskets underneath, or work on that quilt you've always meant to make. With a computer, desk, and storage in the corner where you can blog, or write, or pin, in peace. With endless shelves for storage and fabrics, and inspiration boards to keep you dreaming.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

2012-01-13T18:25:00.000-08:00

"The phrase 'No good deed goes unpunished' is a sardonic commentary on the frequency with which acts of kindness backfire on those who offer it. In other words, because life is inherently unfair, those who help others are doomed to suffer as a result of their being helpful." - Wikipedia

Perhaps I spoke too soon about 2012.

Every week Brody and I are in charge of the tutoring program for our ward. There are a lot of at-risk youth that can't always get homework help at home so every week we do dinner and tutoring where they get one-on-one help from a volunteer tutor--most of which come from the single's ward out here. It's been such a great and rewarding experience...

And if you don't want to hear the "downer" part stop reading here.

Last night we had another tutoring session. One of the boys' birthday is today so we had a cake and party for him. Towards the end of the night I went to grab some keys out of my purse and noticed that my phone wasn't in its usual pocket. Frantically I search my whole Poppins purse and didn't see it anywhere. Panicking, I ran and asked Brody if he'd taken it. Nope. So we roused everyone and started questioning them if they'd seen it (the whole time I knew someone had taken it out of my purse because I hadn't gotten it out all night). Miraculously one of the girls "found" it on the floor in one of the rooms. Yeah I was relieved but it was short-lived.

The wallpaper had already been changed and that chizzler had put a freaking passcode on my phone! So I had to restore it to the factory settings last night and lost a bunch of numbers, photos, etc. THEN, the poor kid whose birthday is today found out that someone had taken $4 cash from his wallet and someone had taken his sweater. SO ridiculous.

I was so discouraged last night. Who steals in general, let alone at church, let alone from their friends and people that are volunteering their time and energy for their benefit?!?!

But wait, it gets better.

Today I kept getting calls from an (888) and an (800) number. I ignored the first ones as per my usual, but after they kept calling and I did a Google search to find that they were fraud prevention numbers I finally called back and yep, the little rat-bastage stole two of my credit cards too.

Apparently they went on quite the shopping spree today, but luckily I won't be liable for any of the charges. And I've spoken to most of the stores they went to and almost all of them have video footage and hopefully we'll be able to recognize the thief. We've already pretty much narrowed it down to two people anyway so we'll see what the security footage has to show us.

Season 2

2012-01-11T17:31:00.000-08:00

Just watched the 2-hour season 2 premiere, amazing. If I didn't love Maggie Smith before (and I DID), I certainly do after this series

Watch Downton Abbey 2: The Critics Can't Stop Talking on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.

That's More Like It

2012-01-09T18:02:00.000-08:00

First of all let me just say...Downton Abbey is pretty fantastic. I may have watched the entire first season last week on Netflix (don't judge too harshly it's only 7 episodes). Who would have thought a BBC/PBS show would be so good?! Watch it. Thank me later.

It was a gorgeous weekend. Weirdly nice for the first week of January anywhere. I took the snapshot below of the temperature on Saturday afternoon while I was taking a break from Downton and perusing some after-Christmas sales.

And just like that, it snowed today for the first time since we've been in DC and I have to say I was rather happy to see it. It wasn't much, and wasn't sticking at all but that didn't stop a few co-workers from wondering weather we were going to have work tomorrow...so funny. I can count the number of snow days I had as a kid on one hand. Two. We had two.

Things are looking good

2012-01-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

Each time I've had to date something this week, I struggled to remember the "12" at the end of 2012. Every year it takes a little getting used to but I can't help but feel like this is going to be a good year, and here are some reasons why:
-It's leap year. It doesn't really have any direct impact on anything...but it's just a quirky little tidbit, like a full moon or Friday the 13th, that makes it seem just a pinch less mundane than the norm.
-It's an election year, and all signs are pointing to a Romney/Obama showdown and it's going to be a close one. Regardless of the outcome, I'm so excited to be in D.C. for a presidential inaugeration (another one to check off the list!). Plus, the potential to visit-teach the first lady is just fun to think about.
-Unemployment is down! All the way to 8.5%, which is still high, sure, but it's the fourth month in a row that unemployement has fallen and this is a very positive and welcome piece of news for all of us. Particularly when Brody will entering the job market in a few years :)
-The London Games. I LOVE the Olympics and London has always been near the top of my "To Do" list. It's a match made in heaven if you ask me. Go USA!
-I got business cards today! I've never had my own, and although I don't anticipate handing them out very much, it's still a fun little milestone and a good omen for 2012.
-I'm getting at least 3 more nieces/nephews this year! Thanks to Lacey being pregnant with twins (we found out yesterday they are a boy and a girl), and Lisa being pregnant as well. Can't wait to meet them all!
-Movies. I've found the older I get, the more picky I am about which movies I watch, (it's a rarity for Brody and I to shell out the money to see one in the theaters when we can just wait and buy the blu ray for the same price) so I'm thrilled that so many movies are coming out this year that actually look really good. First and foremost, the Dark Knight Rises of course. Brody is borderline obsessed with the Christopher Nolan Batman franchise and I can guarantee this will one of the few films we will actually go see in the theaters. Some others that I'm really excited for: The Hunger Games (the first book is by far my favorite of the three), The Hobbit (again, my favorite Tolkien book---a much better read than Lord of the Rings), The Woman in Black, saw the trailer on Katherine's blog the other day and it looks super creepy and good, and it's PG-13!, Snow White and the Huntsman - love the new take on a classic fairytale...although I wish they would have picked a better actress for Snow White. Sorry, but not even in a fairytale is Kristin Stewart prettier than Charlize Theron). I'm hoping the new Spiderman movie will be more in the vein of the Batman movies, let's keep our fingers crossed. The Great Gatsby, I can't wait to see Baz Luhrman's take on this classic tragedy and how can it not be good with Leo playing Gatsby? Speaking of Leo, Titanic is being re-released in 3-D!!! haha okay there's no way I will pay money to see that, I almost died when I saw a preview for it over the Christmas break. Quite frankly I think James Cameron is way over-estimating how good the movie was. It did well because of freak-show 13-year-olds like myself that saw it 7 times in the theater. And lastly, I'm excited to see Lincoln by Steven Spielberg. He's my second-favorite president after all and I'm hoping the movie lives up to all the hype it's already gettting. I think it's a pretty safe bet though with Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee-Jones, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt among other great cast members.
-Oh yeah and the whole 2012-world-ending-Myan-Calendar mayhem. That's sure to be entertaining.
Happy New Year everyone, let's make it a good one :)

Merry Happy

2011-12-29T20:06:00.000-08:00

Christmas was so fun, different, and exciting this year. We were home for eight crazy nights, four at my parent's house and four at Brody's and it went by way too quickly, but it was SO great to see so many friends and spend time with our families.

It felt so weird to go home for 'vacation' knowing that we weren't staying. There were moments where it felt like we had never left and were just getting together with everyone for the latest family get together---like the last five months had never happened. To see mountains again and the beautiful, sprawling, Salt Lake valley. To see snow, even if it was only one day in Park City. And oh how I've missed my outlets, one of the definite highlights of the whole trip was going up there, just me and my mom. You know when you walk into J Crew and it's an extra %30 off your entire purchase that it's going to be a good day :) I saw more movies in the theater last week than I had the entire previous year, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, the six Wiseman's got to spend the day together and it was so familiar and fun. There were lunches with old friends and co-workers, late night chats with my girlies, Wii Dancing competitions, Board Games, Red Butte with my sweet parents, Zupa's tomato basil soup, and not nearly enough play time with our nieces and nephews.

It was so hard to leave, and not just because we had to wake up at 4:00 am to make it to the airport for our flight (which was super crowded and the line for security was backed up all the way to the baggage claim area). There's just something special about being home, being around the people that know us best that was so rejuvenating and absolutely wonderful. Thank you friends and family for making our Christmas so memorable and perfect :)

I was having far too much fun to take any pictures, so these are all from last year's Christmas card session ;) I hope your Christmas was meaningful and special, and that you have a great New Year's Eve!

We'll be Home for Christmas

2011-12-19T13:42:00.000-08:00

We are so excited to be going home for Christmas! I can't wait to give my sweet nieces and nephews endless kisses on their pudgy cheeks and hug all my family and friends, I can't wait for Zupa's tomato-basil soup, and Cafe Rio that doesn't require half-a-day's planning. I'm SO excited to see my gorgeous snow-capped mountains, and all those hand-made ornaments on my parent's tree, for sleeping in and shopping and outlets galore. For family traditions and parties and riding in cars on quiet streets (it's weird that I'm excited for that I know--but it's a rarity), for Christmas lights and suburbs, and home-cooked meals. Yes, I'm even excited for snow :) Bring on the Christmas!

The Good with the Bad

2011-12-16T10:09:00.001-08:00

It's been an interesting week. We've had some wonderful landmarks and some really irritating instances. So, the bad first:

Last weekend when we went to get our car inspected for our new tags, after not driving it for about two weeks, we found that someone had stolen our temporary tags, and those lovely parking enforcement people had left two tickets on our winshield for not having said tags. Great.
We then proceeded to the DMV where we got to wait about an hour and pay almost $400 to officially register our car. When we went to put our official plates on the car, the screw was jammed from those lovely theives so we had to stick it in the window til we got home to some tools.
THEN, when we went to the car to drive for tutoring, there were two more tickets on our winshield because apparently DC requires you to have plates on both the front and back of your vehicle. Our car does not have a place for the license on the front. Terrific.
We are not going to pay for these tickets. Especially the first two and I'm getting excited at the prospect of Brody being an attorney. Oh yes, and in the midst of all this, Brody was taking finals. Needless to say, I have not been a big fan of the city this week, and was seriously considering just selling the car yesterday. Seriously.

But of course, with the bad, there has been some good and we've had some fantastic things happen this week:

Brody finished his finals yesterday, which was the greatest news ever. Just to give you an idea of how stressful the process was, one of the kids in his first final had a stress-induced seizure during the test so there's that.... and Brody has been studying about 13-15 hours a day for the last two weeks. So we are both VERY happy that he's done.
I found out today that I'm getting a little raise for 2012, which is always welcome news.
We leave for Utah next week and are so excited to see our friends and familiy back home :)
It was in the 60's yesterday which was crazy and awesome for mid-December.
I'm going to take Brody out on the town tonight to celebrate being done with finals, yay for date nights!

Happy Friday everyone, and have a wonderful weekend!

Fantasyland Friday: The Family Room

2011-12-16T09:22:00.000-08:00

My dream family room (open to the kitchen) consists of lots and lots of comfy seating, throw pillows, blankets, rounded/tufted corners, and hard-wearing fabrics. Perhaps some built-in storage for the electronics so they can easily be hidden when not is use, and soft, relaxing lighting. A soft rug, an oversize ottoman for the coffee table, and a big-ole, deep-set sectional.

Firsts

2011-12-12T17:39:00.001-08:00

The first time I saw fireflies this summer, I was giddy. They were magical, just like that scene beneath the waterfall in Robin Hood. Amazing.
My first sleepover was with Michelle Scoville who lived just up the street. We had pizza and were supposed to be watching Ferngully, but decided we would be cool and watch Poltergeist with her older sisters, which inevitably led to me having horrible nightmares, waking up balling in the middle of the night and my mom having to come get me.
I remember the first time I moved out of my parents house; I was 18, just starting at BYU and I can vividly remember lying in my new dorm room after a day of unpacking, staring at my roommate's poster of the Beatles and just grinning to myself and feeling oh-so-independent. I still remember the first time I had to wear flip flops to shower...not so fun.

My first time jumping off the high dive, I was little. I mean, maybe 6 or 7. I was wearing my favorite pink swimsuit with sparkly glitter and Roger (from the tennis club) was screaming at me and the other little ones from the side of the pool. I think I was crying....probably. But I did it. Roger didn't even have to throw me in like he did some of the other kiddies. Somehow I don't see him getting away with that anymore.
My first love, obviously that was Leonardo DiCaprio, I was 13, I saw Titanic seven times in the theater (which is almost an entire day when you consider it's three hours long), I bought a book about him, and you better believe I knew every single word to My Heart Will Go On--still do, come to think of it.

My first job not working for my dad was in college, Cafe Rio Provo. Life-changing. Seriously, I made so many great friends and had a lot of learning experiences from that one. Who'd have thought...

My first heartbreak (not counting Leo of course), was so not worth it. Lesson to my single friends: always listen to your friend's honest opinions and heed those red flags.
My first time outside the U.S. (not counting a cruise stop in Ensenada, Mexico) was Barcelona Spain. It was scary and overwhelming and completely wonderful. Even when our cab driver didn't speak a word of English and we were pretty sure was trying to rip us off.

My first college test. It was Astronomy. It didn't turn out great...and was a total eye-opener. It's all blurred into one, big seventy-something (Kath that was for you).
The first time I met Brody---not to be confused with the first time I saw him, which was a year prior when I was at dinner at the Jasmine where he was waiting tables. I was at dinner with one of my favorite friends, who left her number for him on our bill---I'll admit the first time we actually met I thought he was 19 (he's got that baby face) and that his sister was his girlfriend. Thank goodness our very first impressions aren't usually correct.

And there have been so many firsts in the last six months. My first time living outside Utah, and all the firsts that come with that. My first time having to stay at work past 10:00 pm, my first time having someone ask me if Mormons believe in Santa Clause, my first time getting out of a ticket (finally!), my first hurricane and earthquake, the first time I've ever missed snow, and our first time having to fly home for the holidays next week. How is it already mid-December?!

Observations

2011-12-06T11:46:00.000-08:00

That awkward moment when you get on the elevator with the same random guy that you got stuck on the elevator with last time and you really really hope it doesn't happen again.

Getting off the metro the other day and a hair weave falls out of the girl in front of me's purse and so I bend over to grab it for her and abruptly stop when I realize what it is. Hair is just gross even if it's fake. (Don't worry I had called out to her and she came and grabbed it.)

Conversation I overheard on the elevator today:

Girl 1: "...So what, am I just not supposed to bend over when I wear
it?"
Girl 2: "Well you shouldn't ever bend over, you just bend at your
knees."
Girl 1: "Whatever, just stay behind me all night, ha ha..."

Daddy's kicking himself right now for not giving her more attention growing up.

Getting an email from the building manager at work warning everyone that there is going to be a "soft lock down" on Wednesday thanks to Occupy's latest goal of invading K street. Not sure how that's going to help the economy or tax the rich...

Here's the thing about the homeless; I happily gave what change I had to the guy that politely opened the door for me at CVS. The guy that yells at me outside Subway everyday, "Hey buy me a sandwich!!!! Tuna, footlong!!!! does not get my change.

A Taste of Home

2011-12-05T09:48:00.000-08:00

Brody and I were both thrilled when we first heard that there were Cafe Rio's on the east coast. It's a little sad, sure, but true none-the-less. The closest one used to be about a 45-minute trip to Olney, MD, do-able... but not ideal. So you can imagine our excitement when we saw that they had opened one in Falls Church, VA--which according to Google Maps is only a 14-minute drive from our apartment. So on Saturday we met up with Ali and Brian and went.

It was like stepping into some portal that took us back to Utah. The restaurant was crowded with lots of young families, BYU hats and sweatshirts peppered the patrons, and of course the food was just as fantastic as always. It was kind of surreal and was a great little taste of home. Plus, check out the sweet deal they have on Tuesdays...I don't remember seeing that sweet deal ever...

On our way home we stopped at the Iwa Jima memorial to take some pictures for Ali and Brian's Christmas card. It's one of my favorite sites in DC, and has arguably the best view in the whole District. Not too mention that it's usually a lot less crowded than most memorials which is always a major plus.

70 Degrees in November?

2011-11-29T21:05:00.000-08:00

The weather was incredible over the long Thanksgiving weekend, sunny every day and in the 60's and 70's all weekend. So amazing, thank you global warming :)
On Sunday we went to the Capitol Hill ward because it was where Brody had spend the bulk of his mission and there were still a lot of members in the ward that he knew and loved. Unbeknownst to us, the chapel is getting torn down and re-built and that was the last Sunday in that building! We got so lucky with the timing on that one.

It's always fun to drive around the hill. There is so much charm and history, and of course the gorgeous Capitol dome, which is just so captivating. I got a little camera happy while we were driving, but we never see it in our neighborhood!

And as promised, here is the new gallery wall in all it's taken-with-my-phone glory. I liked my old black-and-white arrangement, but I think it's a little fresher and unexpected now.
Before's:

After's:

Thanksgiving Weekend

2011-11-28T08:51:00.000-08:00

This was our first year away from our families as a married couple. We had both spent Thanksgiving away from home before when we were single (Brody on his mission, and I during my infamous month-long cruise) but this was the first time it fell upon our shoulders to actually cook our own little feast. I was especially nervous at the idea of cooking a turkey by myself, but we decided if there was ever a no-pressure "trial-run" this was it. So on Wednesday we went to Trader Joe's, (along with half the city apparently...) and loaded up on some goodies for our meal.

this is the line in front of us, and behind us. We were at the very back of the store, but it moves very fast, they have about 30 checkout stations and are super efficient.

Since it was just the two of us, we decided to do a little turkey breast instead of the whole bird, and Trader Joe's had the perfect 3-lb, pre-stuffed option for us (the idea of "de-gibbleting" an actual turkey still grosses me out), so we happily snatched up one of only two breasts left on the shelf. We made some yummy whole-grain croissants that were to die for, some delicious mashed potatoes and gravy, some asparagus and mushrooms, and of course had the delicious cranberry-apple stuffing.

This is the only picture I took, we didn't want our food getting cold :) The meal turned out pretty good if I do say so myself, and the whole experience made me fully appreciate how amazing my mother is. Every year, the woman makes everything from scratch (yes, she even makes her stuffing from scratch the night before, endlessly cutting up celery and onions and bread crumbs), she makes the cranberry sauce from actual cranberries, boiling them, straining, them, sugaring them... my dad actually mashes real potatoes and yams by hand, before using the mixer, it's truly amazing amd rare and I can now fully appreciate their yearly, heroic fete. Maybe someday we will get to that level (maybe being the operative word there).

In all, it was a relaxing, low-key Thanksgiving and even though I thoroughly missed my usual midnight, black-Friday madness with my friends and sisters, it was great to spend time with Brody before I completely lose him to the utter insanity that will be his finals this semester. We whiled away the rest of the afternoon listening to Christmas music, putting up our two (yes, we literally only have two) Christmas decorations, and watching some football (really Brody watched football while I pinterested and browsed online shopping).

We have so much to be thankful for, what a great day/time of year to reflect and re-focus on what's really important.

Gallery Re-Do

2011-11-26T17:15:00.000-08:00

I was walking through the neighborhood a while back and stumbled onto a sidewalk sale at the lovely Second Story Books just up the street. They were selling all kind of wonderful vintage prints, sketches, etc. for 3$ each or 6 for $15, so naturally I rummaged through the masses and snatched up my favorite six and have been re-framing and switching things around in our gallery wall above the couch.

I really wanted a new original painting in there too, which gave me the itch to just do my own. So using some pinterest inspiration from the photo/palette below, I set to work using oils and a piece of cardboard that came with this old frame, which I spray-painted gold.

Once I had everything in their new frames, I did a little pre-arranging on the floor to find the right arrangement and then took a picture to use as a key when putting them on the wall.

I'll have to take some photos of it all on the wall when I'm actually home when there is some natural light....but the new additions are the gorgeous sketch of the Madonna profile, the peaches, the vase of roses, the Thomas Jefferson print on the right, the vintage print of the bridge at the bottom, and an old world map that isn't in the picture. Yay for sidewalk sales!

Fantasyland Friday: Breakfast Nook

2011-11-25T19:43:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It's been so great to have a little break from work and spend some relaxing time at home it's been a bit of a fantasyland in it's own right...speaking of, back to the dreamhoming. I just love the eat-in Kitchens/breakfast nooks for Saturday morning breakfasts, late-night chats with friends and everything in between :) Is there anything more inviting or cozy?

Last of the leaves

2011-11-20T18:26:00.000-08:00

The leaves are starting to fall in earnest, and the trees are starting to get barren and forlorn. I managed to take a couple pictures of some on a street by our apt the other night. I thought the way the yellow leaves seemed to glow in the light from the street lamps looked really beautiful.

On a completely separate note, Occupy DC marched across the city last week to Key Bridge and they came down K Street right by my work. I snapped some pictures from one of the partner's office. There weren't as many people as I was expecting.

Fantasyland Friday: The Kitchen

2011-11-18T08:27:00.000-08:00

Ususally the heart of any home, right? I have one must for when we eventually buy a house; the kitchen has to be open to the family room. It's where all the good conversations, meals, and all-around family-togetherness takes place. So naturally, in my fantasyland dream house, the kitchen is part of a great room that is open to the family room, and would ideally have some kind of built-in breakfast nook.

If you can't tell by now, I'm a sucker for timeless design and would love to have traditional white cabinetry with a few glass-panelled ones for display, a beautiful subway-tile backsplash, with a natural stone counter-top. A big farmhouse sink, and perhaps a gorgeous butcherblock island. I'm always partial to a beautiful hardwood floor, but I love these herringbone-tile floors as well.

And of course form and function would need to work together. Like a pull-out drawer under the sink instead of the annoying deep cabinets that you have to get down on your knees to reach the back of. A pots-and-pans organizer, a pot-filler by the stove, gigantic pantry, all those fantastic new innovations.

I don't know about you

2011-11-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

but I'm getting a hankering for some Doublemint gum...
Congratulations Lacey & Russ!

National Arboretum

2011-11-15T10:44:00.001-08:00

It's been unseasonably warm here lately. I'm talking, around 70 degrees last weekend...

So naturally we ventured out on Saturday and went to the National Arboretum. I had been dying to go for a drive to see the gorgeous fall leaves, and the arboretum was the perfect option. Brody had been working on a massive paper all weekend and we didn't have enough time to venture outside the District, luckily the Arboretum is located right in Northeast and was a nice, short ride away.

The leaves are stunning. The woods here are just different. I've grown up mostly with pine and aspen, so to see all the different variety of trees (and actaully have quite a few of them labled for me) was fantastic. The little bonsai gallery/exhibit was particularly fun. Is it bad I can't think of a bonsai tree without thinking of Saved By the Bell? Ya know the episode where Mr. Belding gets one, and of course Zach, Screech and the gang inevitably ruin it by trimming it too much?

This one was so cool, it looked like a little model forest.

There are some other cool things at the Arboretum as well, like these awesome old pillars that used to hold up the Portico over the Capitol Building...

Between the gorgeous foliage and perfect weather, I was just loving life, and couldn't help taking a ton of pictures.

Some More Random Thoughts

2011-11-07T12:43:00.000-08:00

And now......deep thoughts:

Airlines are just the worst. I still feel a little sick to my stomach at how much it's costing us to fly home for Christmas. And then they charge baggage fees on any checked luggage (except Southwest). I can't help but feel like there is some kind of trust/monopoly laws being broken by the airlines, I really can't.

I don't mean to make a total generalization, but I don't understand people who like Olive Garden as an italian restaurant. It's just not. I'm sorry. I've said it before and I'll say it again, when they don't even have pesto on the menu....they are not an Italian restaurant. Period. (And this goes for most other big chain restaurants.)

I cringe, CRINGE at some of the stuff on Pinterest that people like. I know it's mean, but an ugly font immediately counters any inspiration one might have drawn from a quote. And honestly? Honestly. I just pity this girl's poor husband...

While we are on the subject of Pinterest, am I the only person that gets really irked by the total martyr/vain quotes like this? You may as well just pin something that says "It's so hard being a better person than most of the people I know" Anyone truly selfless would never ever actually think this, let alone proclaim it online.

Okay now that I've gotten all that negativity off my chest, let's talk about some goodness.

Can I just say how amazing it is to actually enjoy a 'fall' season?! The leaves here are really starting to get vibrant and I'm loving every second of it! And the temperatures have been perfect the last couple of months, I'm used to Utah where falls tends to last about a week (although I truly miss my Aspens/mountains). Brody and I are planning to go to the national arboruem on Saturday and I promise to take lots of pictures.

I may have gone through all of my old pictures and albums on facebook the other night. It was pretty embarassing and entertaining. First of all I can't believe I've been on there since 2005... and second of all, I can't believe how tan I used to be (or the inordinate amount of graphic tees I used to own). It was so fun to look through those pictures though and reminisce about how much fun I use to have with my roommates, whether that was impromptu Annie Lennox dance-parties in the dorms, skipping class to go to Cafe Rio and lay out in the park, or ladies nights in Salt Lake. We really had it made...

I am getting super tempted to start listening to Christmas music, but just knowing that FM100 is playing it back home makes me happy.

I loved my extra hour of sleep over the weekend, but I'm really not a fan of getting off work at 6:00 and it's totally dark outside. Nope, that just won't do.

Oh ya know, just CNN

2011-11-04T11:33:00.001-07:00

Cute sister Williams handing out programs (she is a 94-year-old convert who just went through the temple a couple of weeks ago!)

A couple of weeks ago, we walked into our sacrament meeting for church to find a few CNN camera's waiting.... The church's public affairs office had arranged the whole thing and gotten special permission from the First Presidency to film during sacrament. It was kind of crazy, but exciting to see how much interest there is in the church lately (thanks in large part to Mitt Romney, The Book of Mormon on broadway, and the "I'm a Mormon" ads).

Sister Kamosi (she has the most beautiful speaking voice and accent)

"The scene at a Mormon congregation here on recent Sunday would surprise
Americans who think of Mormons as young white missionaries in stiff white
shirts wearing nametags...

...On this sunday the sacrament - what Mormons call the remembrance of the
Last Supper, and what other Christians call Communion - is said in French, a nod
to the area's burgeouning West African population.

It is not a special multicultural celebration Sunday. For this growing Mormon congregation in northeast Washington, it's just another Sunday."

You can read the full article here

Fantasyland Friday - The Powder Room

2011-11-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

Don't forget to set your clocks back an hour Saturday night!

I think in fantasyland, I will add an extra hour of sleep every weekend... why not right? So back to the dream house, we continue through the foyer and find the main floor powder room on the right in a small hallway leading to the kitchen and great room (those will come later though).

The fun thing about a small powder room is you can kind of indulge in a little out-of-the-box fun. It's so small and contained that you could do something a little out of your norm. For me, that might be wallpaper... it's just one of those trends I just can't fully get on board with in large quantities regardless of how beautiful it is. Perhaps it's my 'yellow' personality, but I think I would get sick of that much pattern in a normal-sized room real quick. But that's the beauty of the powder room. It's so small that you could easily change it out without much effort. It's also the only bathroom I would ever consider doing a pedestal sink (I need my storage). As for permanant fixtures like tile, I am always a strict natural stone/neautral color girl and I love the idea of repurposing a dresser or console to add a sense of history and keep things from looking cookie-cutter or mass produced.

Minted

2011-11-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

Cute Kirsten from 6th Street Design is doign a wonderful giveaway from Minted holiday cards. I would LOVE this fair isle sweater design. So my style.

How is it already that time of year?!

Ben's Chili

2011-11-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

What do you do when it's 36 degrees outside and super windy on the saturday before Halloween?

Warm up with some famous Ben's Chili half-smoke combo. We had heard of Ben's before we even moved out here thanks to various Travel Channel and Food Network mentions, but we hadn't had a chance to sample the famous dish until Saturday night. We met Ali and Brian and had a wonderful time as usual.

On actual Halloween night we walked over to our landlord's to pay our November rent. It was fun to see little trick-or-treaters out and about. And the Mason temple was pretty all lit up at night.

It's always funny to see people in costume, but somehow it's funnier when it's someone dressed as a bloody-zombie reading the wall street journal on the metro. Some of my favorite costumes from this Halloween: Mysterion (from South Park), Tobias Funke (complete with blue paint and never-nude cut-offs), and Quail Man (from Doug, that awesome cartoon from when we were little with Doug Funny, Patty Mayonnaise, and the bunch?). I may have even won most creative costume at work with my co-worker Meg as Occupy Wall St. protestors, complete with TOMS and a poster.

All-in-all it was another great Halloween.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween...

2011-10-31T10:21:00.001-07:00

I hope you all have a spooktacular day! (I'm trying to be as cheeseball pun-ish as possible)

Fantasyland Friday: The Living Room

2011-10-28T11:31:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, the formal living room, sitting room, parlor, whatever you want to call it. In my fantasyland dream house, it's across the foyer from the office, (I much prefer an open floor plan). Again, I would love lots of windows, perhaps a large bay window with a built-in for extra seating, perfect for framing a glowing Christmas tree in the winter, I think this may root back to my childhood. I loved just sitting in my parent's living room around the holidays, looking at all the the different ornaments on the tree my mom had collected over the years, while snow drifting down from the sky, silohuetted against the golden light of the streetlamps. A fireplace would be lovely as well, for stockings and cozying up with a book on cool winter nights. And built-ins on either side for extra display and storage.

Other than Christmas, the formal living room was pretty much the most boring room in the house growing up. It was where the nice furniture was, as well as the piano which I dreaded having to practice, and the room was usually reserved for sitting through home teacher visits. But since I am my mother's daughter, I would love to have a piano in my formal living room someday, perhaps framed in the bump-out bay window the rest of the year (is it too morbid to call dubs on the parent's piano sisters?). I am all about hardwood floors of course, after renting for so long, I really just see carpet as one big dirt and bacteria sponge. And I love the idea of an ecclectic mix of furniture pieces for the front living room that aren't as adept for lounging and comfort. Like a chesterfield sofa, a backless sofa to keep the eye-line open, and perhaps a pair of wingbacks flanking the fireplace.

Of course, comfort is always paramount, and I always prefer a calming, neutral color scheme with a balance of textures and materials ranging from leather and unfinished wood, juxtaposed with a silver leaf dresser or nailhead trim.

Why I Love Halloween

2011-10-26T09:00:00.001-07:00

I am one of those people. I'm a card-carrying, candy dealing, costume-planning, Halloween supporter. It may very well be my favorite holiday. And as I stumbled across some serious 'haters' (for lack of a better word) today here and here, I felt the need to defend my holiday, and I chose to blog about it instead of leaving a nasty comment or two on these articles ( I don't want to give them the satisfaction of knowing I actually read them).

So, why do I love Halloween? To borrow from the incomprable John Hughes, "in the simplest terms, in the most conveniant definitions" I love Halloween because it's fun.

As Christmas has become more about spending ridiculous amounts of money on gifts that people don't really want or need, and the stress of dividing time between families and trying to please everyone, it has lost a lot of it's appeal. I still LOVE Christmas, don't get me wrong, and it is probably my favorite holiday overall, but there is no denying it is a stressful time of year. It's the most wonderful, and yet, worst time of year if you will. And therein lies the beauty of Halloween.

No one stresses out about Halloween. You can spend as much or as little as you want on a costume (D.I. anyone?), and no one really cares if they see you on Halloween. You are free to be and do as you please. Whether that's dancing the night away at a party, attending the local ward trunk-or-treat, or just staying home and having a Netflix marathon.

In a broader context, Halloween also doesn't carry the kind of social pressures that other holidays can. Take Valentine's Day for example, it's almost impossible to not feel like a complete social outcast or loser if you are single. And even Thanksgiving and Christmas can be really hard on someone who is lonely. I'm just sayin', you never hear about suicide or depression rates going up around Halloween. And there is no awkward moment when you count down to the New Year, wondering whether the creep next to you is going to try and kiss you, or conversely, feeling left out because you have no one to kiss.

Halloween is the only day of the year where I can dress up like a Goonie and not be judged :) Halloween allows us to wear a real mask, as opposed to the emotional one we may put on for other holidays. To quote Oscar Wilde "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." (anonymous comments on a Youtube thread anyone?) There is a certain freedom that comes from wearing a costume, people tend to say and do things they never would normally (and yes, that can certainly be both good and bad). But from my own experience, I have met amazing people and started life-long friendships from things I've done and places I've gone on Halloween that were outside my 'norm'.

You get to hang out with friends and watch scary movies, or go trick-or-treating with your sweet nieces and nephews. You can unabashedly watch Hocus Pocus over and over. You can wear jeans to work if you plan your costume accordingly. You can get lost in corn mazes and try carving unwittingly hard jack-o-lantern patterns. And it's the only time of the year when little kids can knock on the doors of complete strangers and receive a treat, which when you think about it, in this world--is really quite remarkable.

Sure, I may be biased. After all, the first time Brody and I held hands was when we were watching Arachnophobia with some friends, and our first kiss was after a night that we had gone to a haunted house together. But I think it's fitting :) and for these, and countless other reasons and memories, I'll always love Halloween.

The Local Vernacular

2011-10-24T11:38:00.001-07:00

Every place has it's own language and customs, and DC is no different. I used to think Utah had a lot of abbreviations, (or as my college friends used to lovingly say 'abbreves'), but DC is the official land of acronyms, (which really shouldn't be that surprising, considering D.C. itself is an acronym) but it's insane, there is an acronym for just about everything.

Here is just a sampling of some of the acronyms I've learned so far; HOB, SOB, EPA, DOE, DOJ, OMB, DOD, MACT, CSAPR, CAIR, CKRC, OSHA, NAR, EEAP, DCA, BWI, T&E, LDA, NOX, SO2, PM, CIS, NESHAPS, NSPS, WCMA, WCSC, PRG are you annoyed yet? Because that's just what I can remember off the top of my head.

Another thing to note if you ever visit, always stand to the right on the metro escalators. If you want to walk up them or pass people, go on the left side (just like driving). People will get seriously annoyed if you are blocking the left side traffic.

"The DC bump". Brody and I had a sort of bapitsm by fire with this one. It was our second morning in the city, the day we were moving in. We had just parked in front of our new building and were talking in the front seat of our car when a guy parllel parking in front of us totally bumped our car. Yes, while we were sitting in it. Really?! So after giving him a 30-second window to get out and apologize, naturally I walked right up his window to let him know because surely he must not have realized, "Um, you just hit our car." I informed him with what I hope was a blatant you-moron look on my face. He shrugged and said "sorry" in that I-really-couldn't-care-less tone. Our car was totally fine, but I was still bugged. But apparently it happens a lot, I've seen it maybe 6 times since then while walking around.

Potomac Fever. The elusive "Potomac Fever" refers to people who move to DC and completely fall in love with it. I'm pretty sure Brody had a case of it on his mission. It typically refers to people who initially plan on living here short-term, only to still be here 30 years later with roots firmly planted. I have no doubt our families back home are praying we don't catch this one ;)

K Street. It's a thing. All the big lobby/law firms are on K Street. Yours truly works on K street.

The Beltway. The beltway is the 495 freeway that makes a complete loop around the District. If you live "inside the beltway" than you can really say you live in DC. It's also the one with the fantastic view of temple when you are heading west on the northern end of 495.

For me, the craziest thing about living here is how you kind of forget where you are, until you are crossing the street and look up to check the traffic only to see the Washington Monument glowing in the sun. Or if you are on a walk with your hubby and non-chalantly look down a side street, only to unexpectedly see the back of the White House. Pretty awesome.

MLK memorial

2011-10-23T14:35:00.000-07:00

We finally went and saw the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial yesterday. Despite the hordes of people, it was a cool experience and the memorial was beautiful (as was the weather)

First, we stopped for some dinner at Bobby Flay's

then walked over to the mall

Fantasyland Friday: The Office

2011-10-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

Another week. Another excursion into fantasyland. Won't you join me?

As we come through the entry, the office is on the right, through the double french doors ;) My dream office would of course have lots and lots of bookshelves, preferably built-ins, flanking a credenza and some beautiful artowrk, with a floating desk front and center. I love the idea of a credenza where the compute can be, keeping the desk free of clutter and chords. A classic layout, but classic for a reason. Perhaps a built-in window seat on the other wall as well?

Restoration Hardware has some of my favorite inspiration for home offices. The perfect balance of masculine and sophistication. And their lighting fixtures are always spot on.

I love these gallery walls

A statement chair can speak volumes

I love the idea of using filing cabinets for a base and either butcher-block or natural stone for the counter of a credenza

Finally

2011-10-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

I see this beautiful building everyday when I leave for work

2 hours, some serious frustration, and a couple of total stereotypical DMV employees (you know, the ones with absolutely no sense of urgency who type with one finger and spell your name wrong ), and we FINALLY got our licenses renewed!!!! Not that I plan on driving in the District anytime soon..

Am I alone in thinking that the DMV and Post Office should be privatized?! Honestly though, say what you will about corporations, they are nothing if not efficient. Here are more instagrams of life lately, enjoy!

The mall

Georgetown / the first signs of fall

Connecticut Ave in Dupont / the remains of a very unwelcome guest last night
okay I apologize about the dead spider, but it was honestly the BIGGEST spider I've ever seen and had to document it.

Fantasyland Friday: The Entry(s)

2011-10-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

It's already Friday? What?! Not that I'm not thrilled, but I just don't know what happened to Tuesday and Wednesday...

So into fantasyland we continue through the beautiful front door, into my dream house entry. Overall I want my home to be clean, comfortable, warm, and inviting and the entry is the first impression. Again, I would love to have lots of natural light and I've always dreamed of having a beautfiul stairway/banister when you first walk in (again, this might go back to watching Father of the Bride too many times growing up). A place to put keys, guest's shoes, purses etc. is a must--I love a good console arrangement.

Ideally all of the family's shoes, coats, sports gear, etc. would be contained in the mudroom, which would have lots and lots of built-in storage of course. With a little area for each member of the family, because this is fantasyland and anything goes :)

And an attached garage would be lovely, and of course in fantasyland everything would always be perfectly organized and clean like this...

Pretty Georgetown

2011-10-11T20:01:00.001-07:00

Saturday was beautiful! It was sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and about 75 degrees! Finally! So Brody and I decided to talk a nice walk to the Georgetown DMV (it's in a mall, how weird is that?) and just grit our teeth, bring some anti-bacterial gel, and get our license renewals over with.

Little did we know that the DMV decided that taking Monday off for Columbus day wasn't enough, and they decided they needed the Saturday before too. Really?!?! So yet again, we weren't able to renew our licenses. Third times a charm? We're keeping our fingers crossed for next weekend.

this is us posing as nerdily and ugly as possible in a mirror at the DMV mall
At least Georgetown was as charming and pretty as I thought it would be.

just the local bank in a super old, awesome, gold-domed building

the couple behind me could be posing for an ad...

It's weird being here because you never seem to see more than 100 ft in front of you, I'm used to sprawling valleys where you can see for miles. M street was the farthest I could see in a while (unless you go to the national mall)

Brody waiting for the metro before church / heading out for some groceries

some of the leaves are starting to change, eek! so excited! / me posing awkwardly in front of a pretty mural by our apt.

Sad story....hopefully it will have a happy ending

2011-10-10T11:07:00.000-07:00

One of the best little pleasures in life is getting something in the mail other than bills or junk. A hand-written card or box with the trademark Amazon smile can just make your day right? Well, imagine my delight when the purse I recently purchased a from ebay (I've decided it's the best way to buy genuine leather without paying a ridiculous premium), came much sooner than expected. So like a child waiting impatiently for their siblings to get up on Christmas morning, I drummed my fingernails on my desk all day at work and stole countless glances inside my box as I waited to take my lovely little package home and open it (it's sad what makes you excited at work.)

Finally, at six o'clock I hurried home to open my package. With a whiff of real leather, I ran my fingers along the buttery-soft bag and excitedly started to transfer all my things from my old purse. As I prepared to pile all of my loose change into one of the interior zip pockets, my finger's closed around what I had thought would be a coin, but turned out to be a gold ring.

I examined it closer and my heart fell as I read an inscription on the inside which gave a date, and a tender message of "I love you" how sad is that?!

Immediately I ran over to my computer and emailed the seller asking her the best way to get the ring back to owner (I can't imagine my heartbreak if either Brody or myself lost our wedding rings), but as I read her reply, my heart sunk a little lower as she explained that she buys her bags in bulk and had no way of knowing who the owner could be. Blerg.

So....on to plan B....hmmmm......what should I do?

Fantasyland Friday: The Exterior

2011-10-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

House by Hillary Taylor Interiors, Photo from

Okay, this is a totally self-indulgent post, but I think it will be fun none the less. I have always loved design, art, creativity, style, and expression. Basically all that right-brain artsy stuff. And one of my favorite forms of expression and creativity is interior decorating. I used to watch Christopher Lowell everyday when I was in maybe 6th grade, in the days before HGTV even existed... and I would get excited when my mom would get a shiny new Ethan Allen catalog in the mail, and daydream about the day when I would have a house of my own to decorate...

I still do.

Only now, it's scrolling through Pinterest, or Elle Decor, or House Beautiful, or Lonny or any of the hundreds of e-magazines and design blogs out there. And I thought it would be fun to collect my dream home ideas and save them in my blog, one piece at a time. Just in case Sarah Richardson calls to let me know that she has decided to make this season "Lindsey's House" and let me totally gut and re-do a house so that it's perfectly me. I'm just putting it out there Sarah...

*And as a general disclaimer, this is all pure fantasyland, in-my-wildest-dreams, self-indulgent, I-don't-expect/need-this-but-it's-fun-to-dream stuff, okay? Okay. And this is not my 'golden ticket', I already found that when I married Brody :)

So let's start with the exterior. Although I can appreciate all kinds of design--be it mid-century modern, art deco, tudor, spanish revival, etc.--my heart belongs to the timeless look of colonial and cape cod architecture. Maybe it's because I watched Father of the Bride and Home Alone too many times growing up (yes that is an embarrassing picture of me and my friends in front of the actual Father of the Bride house) but I love the combination of white trim and black shutters, against red brick, siding, or classic cedar shingles.

I love, love dormer windows, and I think most people would love a big, welcoming front porch for little kids to play on. And if it happens to wrap around the whole house, well that would just be the cherry on top.

More than anything I love lots of natural light, and therefore love lots and lots of windows. French doors would be a dream come true someday. So classic.

And I would just love a welcoming back yard where kids can play at family get-togethers, with plenty of lawn for back-yard soccer, tag, hide-and-go-seek, swing, etc. With a space for barbequing and eating outdoors on warm summer nights.

And Brody's one request for our dream house is a hot tub, so we would need to fit that in somewhere as well. As for a pool? I don't know, I go back and forth, but I tend to lean towards no...however, these pictures make a pretty good case.

Details

2011-10-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite characteristics of our new city, and the East Coast in general, is the charm. Everywhere you look there are gorgeous architectural details, hints of some noble history, and a story waiting to be told.

On Sunday, between sessions of conference, Brody and I took a walk to our landlord's to pay our October rent and I couldn't help but snap pictures of all the beautiful buildings and some details along the way. All with just my phone of course, but still. All I want to do these days is walk around our neighborhood.
Enjoy some more pictures of our life for the last week or so...

Colorful row houses and a seriously beautiful palladian window/french door combo...

some kind of rally/protest at Dupont, and the South Dupont Metro escalator. It's no fun when it stops working...

there are embassy's all over our neighborhood. I'm trying to get better at learning all the different flags

I'm embarrassed to say I can't remember what flag this is, but they are right on trend with that ikat on their flag!

The Mason temple (yes from that Dan Brown book) is smack dab in the middle of a residential area (and I made Brody pose for me like a tourist, he must really love me)

Swann street, apparently it's a pretty big deal if you live on Swann street.... why I'm not so sure, just one of those things I guess. I can't wait for the leaves to start changing.

the beautiful sky above Connecticut Ave before a storm

Thick, creamy, tomato-basil soup for the soul

2011-10-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

Because, let's face it, it's way better than chicken.

I was in 5th grade, it was some time in either October or November--in the height of college football season--and I was invited to a friend's house to watch a game. I don't really remember any of us caring about the score so much, as we were all 9 and 10-year-old girls, but I remember that their tv room had one of those exercise bikes with the handles that go back and forth as you ride (supposedly to tone your arms?). Anyway, I was chatting with one of my friends, and non-chalantly put my foot on one of the pedals without really thinking about it. As the pedal came down, one of the handles automatically came back and caught the center-adjusty thing on one of their shutters and snapped it in half. The party came to a screeching hault as my friend's mom saw the broken shutter with a look of horror on her face, and yelled at me in front of all my friends, "When you go to someone else's house, you don't touch a darn (but she used the real word to me) thing!", and in no time she was packing us all in the car to take us home because I had, and I quote, "lost my manners".

I felt horrible. I was mortified (although looking back, probably not as much as my friend whose mom said those things to me). And when I got home, it was to any empty house because my parents had expected me to be at the party. And so I sat down on our couch and cried, thinking I was going to be in a lot of trouble, thinking my parents were going to have pay a ton of money to fix their shutter. I turned on the tv and Ace Ventura 2: Pet Detective was on HBO. And after a few minutes I stopped crying. And after a few more, I actually started laughing... a lot (High-ho Silver, awaaaaaayyyy!). And after the movie was over, my parents came home and I explained everything to them. My sweet mom hugged and comforted me while my dad had a nice little 'chat' with my friend's mom over the phone. Afterwards he wiped a tear from my cheek and let me know that all was well.

I tell this story because even to this day, Ace Venture 2 holds a special little place in my heart for making me laugh that night, and bringing me out of the depths of my childhood despair. It's not my favorite movie of all time, not by a long shot. And yes, it is low-brow, yes it is slapstick, but parts of it still make me laugh really hard. My sister and I may have even been quoting it to each other in whispers when we were watching a Broadway production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang just last year. There are certain movies, books and TV shows that just make me feel better, like a steaming cup of tomato-basil soup for my soul. They are nostalgic and cathartic in a sense. And even though I've seen them countless times, like my dad, they seem let my psyche know that all is well.

what are some of your favorites?

There's always money in the banana stand

2011-10-03T13:05:00.001-07:00

Yes it's true, they are finally making a movie and doing at least 10 more episodes!!!

This is exactly what I needed to hear today :)

Highlights

2011-09-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

Life, as they say, is in the details. So here are some highs and lows of life lately

Highs:

Coming around the bend on the 495 and seeing this gorgeous site (sorry it's such crappy quality, I snapped it on my iphone, the one on the right I found online but gives a much better sense of the gloriousness)

Tell me that doesn't remind you of Emerald City? The DC temple is one of my faves and the way it is perfectly situated on the 495 is nothing short of magical. I've even heard tell that there are frequent traffic issues along that stretch of the freeway because of distracted driver's.

Ebay. I'm obviously super late to the game on this one, but is there anything more satisying than paying super cheap prices for awesome goodies? Plus the whole bidding system just appeals to my competitive side. The key is to never bid early.
Opening the mailbox and finding a nice stash of new fall catalogs instead of bills.
Getting to meet Brody for lunch on Mondays and Fridays. It really just makes my day :)
New episodes in the Hulu queue
Getting to the metro station just as the train arrives

Lows:

Getting your utility bill with 3 months worth of charges...
Taking the time to wave your hair in the morning, only to have the curl pretty much gone by the time you get to work ten minutes later. Thanks humidity, really fantastic.
When it rains pretty much every, single, saturday for I can't remember how long.
Going to the DMV, which you loathe, so you procrastinate it even though your license has expired and you've been putting it off for weeks and weeks because you aren't really in the mood to wait in a crowded line for 3 hours next to people who may or may not have bathed in the last week. I mean really, I feel like I'll need a silkwood shower after that.
I will never understand why office buildings are always freezing. It doesn't have to be 65 degrees for people to be productive

I'm trying to be better at taking pictures, but we just haven't been doing a lot that merits legit photos (going back to the raining every Saturday), but here a couple shots from the last few weeks:

Columbia Heights at night / Brody waiting patiently for the metro at the Friendship Heights station

"Home is not where you live, but where they understand you."

2011-09-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

You thought I was going to say home is whenever I'm with you, didn't you? Well no, although I do love that song. I was just gchatting with a dear friend today and I was telling her how much I miss her and how weird it is to live somewhere where almost nobody really knows me, except Brody of course. But she has known me since we were maybe 12 years old and was there with me through the highs and lows of adolescence. She and the rest of my wonderful friends in Salt Lake, whether they've known me since we were barely 6 years old, taking swimming lessons together at the tennis club, or when we were stupid teenagers driving around in a van listening to eminem or razoring down the gulley because you know, we were just so cool like that.

But being out here I realize how I took that familiarity for granted.

There are pros and cons to such an existance. You get a blank slate, you get to be whoever you want. And yes, that is great and all, but I'm not a 18-year-old going to college to figure that out anymore. I am very secure in who I am and almost more importantly, who I am not. I'm not busy checking facebook anymore to see what my 'friends' are up to, or updating my status with blatant cries for attention/validation (we've all been there, especially those of us who were in college when it all got started anyway). I'm not concerned about the number of people in my 'friends list' or the number of comments I get on my little blog. That's not why I do it.

I just don't need that anymore. I'm secure in the fact that I have a handful of really great friends that I keep in touch with through daily chats, texts, blogs, and dare I say it, even phone calls... Just the other week I had an hour-long phone call in the middle of a crowded CVS with one of my closest friends from college, and it was like no time had passed even though we hadn't kept in as good of touch as we would like. But she knows me, we lived together for 3+ years and even though so much has changed in our lives and we literally live on opposite sides of the country, it's still the same. Whether we are all getting together for lunch at CPK, or leaving voicemails about listening to FM100 and thinking of each other. And it was refreshing to talk to someone who knows me, who was such a huge part of that time in my life.

I was just thinking today that I am going on 4+ years of working full time. It's kind of crazy to think that I've been working professionally for the same amount of time I was in high school, and I don't think I would have made it through with without my long G-chats with another one of my best friends on all topics ranging from capital punishment and politics to harry potter. I lived and traveled with her for good month too, and it's always a comfort to get her perspective. Because she will tell me how she really feels--unabashed. I can have an intelligent conversation with her. And she knows the real me, the good, the bad, and the ugly choices I've made :)

A lot of my closest friends from college all came from working together at Cafe Rio of all places, and I still keep in touch with them and no matter how much time passes, it's still normal and fun when we get together (or when they post an ugly picture of me on their blog *hem hem). We can count on each other, even if it's something as random as things to do in DC during the fall, or hanging no parking signs and helping each other to the airport :)

And I've made some other suprising work friends too. It's strange to be in a new office where I'm not able to relentlessly make fun of my superiors and where people really don't go to lunch together. I miss my old work friends and our daily lunches. I miss our quote board and I miss that familiarity, but I still keep in touch through texts and emails (oh and pottermore), but again, now that it's gone I realize how much I took for granted.

But just this last weekend, I got to go shopping with a new girlfriend and it was so fun! We were planning on going to the Relief Society Broadcast but when our ride fell through we decided we might as well go shopping together :) I haven't been able to shop with a girlfriend since July! (Brody doesn't do shopping unless it involves electronics). But it was so great to get to know each other better and make a new friend (bonus, she has excellent taste).

And we have met so many other wonderful people in our ward, which I'm a little obsessed with. Let's jsut say that testimony meeting in the DC 3rd, is sometimes referred to as open mic night. It's wonderfully authentic and refreshing.

Are you still there...?

I'm sorry this turned into such a cheese-fest novel, but I just wanted to articulate how exciting and strange it is to build new friendships, and how comforting it is to have a solid network of old friends that keep in touch. Because next to my awesome family, they are the next big thing ya know?

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

2011-09-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

Which for me is Autumn and I believe today is the official first day of Fall!!!! And can I just say that I'm extremely excited about experiencing fall on the East Coast for the first time? I can't wait for the leaves to start changing, among a myriad of other fall loveliness including:

Tights, tights, tights. I may have bought about 4 pairs the other day including a rusty-red cableknit, a solid deep forest-green, and a gray and beige in a lovely herringbone pattern.

Boots. My favorite pair have been stashed away all summer and I couldn't be more excited for the temperatures to drop a little so I can bust them out.

Hot chocolate. Is there anything better than cozying up in a soft blanket, with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book?

Apple-picking. I won't lie, this hasn't exactly been a tradition for me, but I've been told that there are some gorgeous orchards in the Shenendoah's and I think this is going to be new tradition. At least for the next three years :)

Scenic drives. I haven't driven a car since July. After getting pulled over on our very first night in the city (luckily she let me off with a warning), I banned myself from driving in the District, and although for the most part I've really enjoyed our new pedestrian lifestyle, I'm looking forward to some scenic drives with Brody. Perhaps to Foamhenge?

The shows are back on! Finally. Although the only channel we are able to pick up with our digital antennae is NBC, luckily we have Hulu to catch up on the rest.

Soup. I love a good soup, especially for lunch. There is nothing better to warm up after a brisk walk in the cool Autumn air.

Scarves. And I'm not even close to a hipster. I just love being able to layer and bundle-up.

Plaid. Tweed. Houndstooth. Leather. Corduroy. Wool. Nuff said.

Quilts. I love, love sleeping in a cold room, but being toasty warm under my duvet and quilt. Although it does make it twice as hard to get up in the morning.

"They call it, Cashmere." Now I definitely don't own a lot of this fantastic fabric, but I love that the weather finally justifies it.

Halloween. It's just the greatest isn't it? However, I am a little shamed to admit that I haven't given my costume as much thought this year (I usually like to start planning in the summer), but I'm debating whether Brody and I (mostly me) could pull-off Don and Betty Draper...

And you really can't forget Thanksgiving, although it will be sad this year not to spend it with our families but I'm sure some form of Skyping will be in order. I'm not really sure whether I should even attempt to cook a turkey. That could be interesting :)

Pumpkin Patches! I'm betting there will be some serious pumpkin patches in Virginia with my name on it.

Pumpkin Pie. This may just be bittersweet this year though because I've yet to find a pumpkin pie that comes close to my mother's. Just saying.

Kind of a big deal

2011-09-20T08:48:00.001-07:00

New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera blows a kiss to fans after recording his career record 602nd save against the Minnesota Twins (Reuters)

Well it's happened, I've had another high-profile run-in. And he's a legit high-profile. I'm not sure how detailed I can be on my blog but let's just say that yesterday I shook the hand of a man that was once the mayor of a really really big city on the East Coast. He may have even made a bid for the Presidency once. Oh and he is a big Yankees fan, as was evidenced by the fact that he was watching their game yesterday on a laptop, in an office mere feet away from my desk, because you know it's not everyday that Mariano Rivera gets to save 602 and it "couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy". Oh did I mention this was just minutes before making a presentation to a group of important people? I may have even printed out the boarding passes for him and his secuirty unit...ya know, just another Monday.

All you need is a light jacket

2011-09-18T14:10:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, it's been kind of a crazy week!

We did three filings at work, which was exciting and crazy to see how much goes into filing pleadings, motions, etc. for the Circuit court. I felt like a total moron all week while I relied heavily on the assistants around me to carry-out the cite-checking, formatting, and logistics of each filing. But it was interesting to see the 'late-night' side of litigation.

It was the second week of the tutoring program for the youth in our ward and let's just say we are learning as we go :) It was successful but let's just say we had about 5 people show up to be tutored that we didn't know were going to be there and had to do a little last-minute shuffling/scrambling to find tutors for everyone.

Friday night we were invited to a get together with some of the other students from Brody's section. It was interesting to put faces on some of the people I've been hearing about, and to be a definite minority of the group being both Mormon and married :)

The second was a Sunday dinner invitation from cute Ali and Brian, who invited all the new BYU interns in our ward, as well as a few of the other young couples over for some lovely dinner and conversation. It was so fun to get to know them, although I won't lie I felt a little old when I was asked when I graduate and had to think about it for a second, (2007). I can't believe it's been that long!

Let's talk about the weather this week...it was fantastic! It wasn't hot or cold, it was that perfect beginning of fall, crisp, cool air. Perfect jacket weather. Which of course meant that I had to watch You've Got Mail, I've decided it's my unofficial fall kick-off movie.

We are hoping to go see the new MLK memorial at the mall this week, we've heard some great things and can't wait to see it for ourselves!

Living / Dining

2011-09-11T18:34:00.001-07:00

I took some pictures of the living and dining room this weekend, it was finally sunny and I actually had some natural light! It had been raining for about a week straight.

I got these lovely Robert Allen ikat pillow covers on etsy, and we covered our red lovesac with a beige fitted sheet.

Before:

After:

the full layout, with the lovely eye-sore treadmill (which we got for free!)

And the dining room, or really I should say dining area as it's just around the corner from the living area

I painted all of our mis-matched chairs and re-upholstered them in burlap

this was the lone painting of mine that made the cut this time around, possibly because it was my first oil and took a good month for me to finish.

And because I was struggling to take pictures with the natural light that were actually in focus, here are some with the lights on. Isn't it crazy how they completely change the coloring?

and here are the before's. One wall in the dining room was red, and one wall in the living room was purple. Yeah. red and purple in the same eye-line. horrific.

Before:

After:

New Bedroom

2011-09-09T20:03:00.000-07:00

For the two people that care, I finally got around to taking some photos of our bedroom last week. The rest of the apt to come soon, enjoy!

Again, just to make them look better, this is the before with the previous tenant's horrible red...

And here is the after.

And I'm itching to paint this amazing 60's behemoth dresser...

a lovely soft blue and replace the hardware with some beautiful brass or rose-gold loveliness a la...

Did you feel it?

2011-09-06T16:29:00.000-07:00

It was kind of cold today. No really, the high was only 64 degrees!

She's coming and I couldn't be more excited! I even saw two girls wearing Hunters in the rain. And I saw more than one trench coat and wished I had worn mine (I was kind of freezing on my walk home. )

Labor Day

2011-09-05T19:35:00.000-07:00

It was a relaxing, rainy Labor day in DC and it was hard not to miss our family on this holiday weekend. I definitely miss days like this. It's funny how the littlest things can make you miss home. Like having to buy store-bought jam. Yuck. I was raised on (and spoiled by) my mom's incredible homemade raspberry and strawberry jams. We love and miss you family!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

2011-09-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to find an affordable stylist ever since we moved to DC. But after finding a girl in our ward that charges $100, and calling a hair school and having them tell me it would be $70 for highlights, and $18 for a cut for a STUDENT, I consigned myself to the fact that it wasn't going to be possible to have it done for less than $100 and quite frankly I can't justify spending that much on hair when Brody's tuition is $40,000 a year. Plus, my stylist back in Utah once told me I should never pay more than $60 to get my hair done because I have such fine hair. So I decided to look into doing it myself.

After doing a lot of online research, watching video tutorials, asking for advice from friends and my old stylist, I decided to give it a try. I picked a L'Oreal home kit and I'm actually pretty pleased with the results. I was terrified, I mean literally petrified, to do my own hair. I've been getting it done since my senior year of high school and I had never dyed my own hair. But I think it turned out alright, and it only cost about $14. It's a little darker overall now and a lot warmer. Now I just need to get it cut! Please excuse how gross I look in the before picture.

before/after

Just a hint

2011-08-31T12:40:00.000-07:00

There's not a whole lot to this trailer, but still worth watching...

Where are my Tic-Tac's!!!

2011-08-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

I shouldn't have to tell you what movie that incredible line is from, but I will anyway. It's from one of my all-time favorites, You'ev Got Mail, during the scene when Tom Hanks and Parker Posey get stuck on the elevator. I bring it up, because I had my own little similar experience, with someone who would be a kindred spirit to Parker Posey's formiddable character. There I was, going down to grab some lunch when the elevator gave a little lurch and made a odd groan. I looked at the only other patron in there with me, a man in his 40's or 50's from one of the law offices upstairs, who immediately revealed himself as a loud, type-A from Jersey and subsequently starting ringing the emergency bell and yelling through the little intercom thing at whoever would listen. We were only in there for about a half hour, an interesting half hour to be sure, but certainly not a harrowing tell of claustrophobia or panic. I guess I can just chalk-it-up to another new experience.

Experiences

2011-08-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

"Some people feel the rain, others just get wet." - Bob Marley

When Brody and I decided to move to DC, we did it in part because we wanted to have an adventure. We wanted to get outside our comfort zone and see what life was like outside the bubble. And in the last week, we got more than we bargained for :) What are the odds of an earthquake and hurricane striking the same week? (really though I would be curious to hear that statistic) and during Brody's first week of law school no less?! It's actually been a great week, we got really lucky with Irene and didn't even lose power. Last night we decided to take a little walk to the fountain to see what the weather was like..

The rain was actually lighter than normal, but there were some powerful gusts of wind.

It was weird to see the fountain completely deserted. Normally it's a feeding ground for homeless, activists, bucket drummers, lovers and everyone in between. It was eerily quiet but kind of fun to be the only ones there.

Brody is doing great in school so far. The amount of reading was a little overwhelming at first but he actually enjoys the subject material.

It's been an exciting week to say the least!

The Map - How To

2011-08-25T09:44:00.001-07:00

Okay this project was super super simple and you will be thouroughly UN-impressed when you are done reading :)
I was debating for some time what I wanted to do above our bed. I was toying with the idea of more photos, but didn't want to spend any more on frames and frankly I was too lazy to paint anything. So, thanks so some pinterest inspiration photos, mostly via Restoration Hardware (above), I decided on the triptec-map idea.

I love using a series of 3 so I "upcycled" some canvas paintings I had done a few years ago that I was sick of looking at. It might sound crazy but I painted over them with some cream-colored latex wall paint we had in our pantry. Once that was dry, I searched online for an antique map that had the dimensions I needed. Real prints are ridiculously expensive and I wanted this to be as cheap as humanly possible, so I decided to just print my own.

So I did like I always do and just google-imaged "Vintage Map of Washington DC" and picked the one I liked the best that had the highest-resolution. Then, I just pasted it into microsoft paint (no really, I don't have photoshop anymore) and stretched the image a little to make it wider and fit the dimensions I needed. I just eye-balled it, but if you want to be super fancy and precise you could measure and then apply that ratio to the picture.

Then I opened up a word document, made the margins super small and basically 'selected' sections of the image and printed them from the word doc. I did the images in sections, four sheets of paper for each canvas. I gave myself a little buffer of overlapping to make sure they lined up. Once I had printed them all out, I just modge-podged them on the canvas so that the lines and pictures on the map lined up. I had to trim a lot off the bottom sheets of paper but it actually worked out well. The modge-podge made the ink run just a tad but it ended up adding to the whole antique effect.

Once that was dry, I decided it needed a little more tailoring so I just taped off the borders and painted them all black with some acrylic that I already had. And voila, a triptec vintage map of DC! It's definitely not perfect but it literally didn't cost anything and I was pleasantly surprised by how it turned out. It spans almost our entire Queen-sized bed and is a nice focal point since we don't have a headboard.

Earthquake

2011-08-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

So I just experienced my first earthquake. I was sitting quietly at my desk at work when I heard a rumble and felt a slight vibration. My first thought was that it sounded like a huge group of people on the floor above me must be running down the hall. But it got stronger and the whole building started shaking kind of violently and I realized it was really an earthquake and I had that oh crap moment of this is real. my family will be so sad if something happens to me.

okay. remember back to elementary school when they taught us what do to in an earthquake....get under your desk, or is it a doorjamb? Or do I put my head between my knees? I felt my desk to feel how sturdy it was and decided to go to a doorjamb of one of the surrounding offices as I heard various expletives from my co-workers down the hall, and heard something fall from a shelf in a nearby office. And then the shaking got softer and turned back into a slight vibration. And then it stopped, and I could still see a street lamp out of the window swaying. It lasted maybe 45 seconds. We all looked at each other with a wow that really just happened expression, not really knowing what to do. I texted Brody to see if he was okay (he was of course), and then the building manager came down the hall and ordered everyone to evacuate. It was kind of crazy to be looking up and down K street and see everyone on the street, cell phones in hand, texting and tweeting away. In a matter of seconds we figured out that people had felt it all the way from Connecticut to North Carolina (thanks to facebook). Gotta love technology in times of "crisis".

It was quick, and really not too bad, I don't think any buildings were damaged and I don't think anyone got hurt. The media is totally blowing it out of proportion, this made me giggle

the extent of the DC Earthquake devastation :)

Happenings

2011-08-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Here are some highlights from our life the past couple of weeks:

Brody started school today! It's so crazy that after so much build-up and anticipation it's finally here and so far he is really enjoying it. The reading assignments they have are really interesting...even to me. I'm hoping to hear some juicy Socratic method stories tonight over dinner

We have learned to check the weather every morning before leaving the house. If you are caught without an umbrella (or in the wrong color top, this hasn't happened to me I've just seen other unfortunate women on the street) just imagine dumping a giant buckets of water on your head. That is what you'll look like.

Shopping using the metro is a good way to curb your spending. You can't buy more than you can carry. Literally.

I saw the greatest thing ever at Target. The store here is two levels and they have this crazy escalator thing for your cart! and you ride ride next to it on the normal escalator. I had to take a picture, I couldn't get over it.

When I was coming home from Target I got caught at the Dupont Metro in a downpour. I had an umbrella, but also two big shopping bags worth of things that couldn't get wet. So I waited, with about 50 other people, while a street performer serenaded us with Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" and an 80-year-old man starting hitting on me and telling me he liked my new lampshades (you can actually see them in the picture of my cart). Is there anything more awkward than inching away from a person only to have them inch closer? I eventually just called Brody who saved me by bringing a plastic garbage sack for the Target stuff and we ran home in the rain. Umbrella's are really only good for keeping you dry from the waist up in that kind of rain.

I got crafty and mod-podged a vintage map of DC onto some canvas to go above our headboard-less bed.

Brody's bike got stolen out of a garage, where it was locked and chained. ridiculous. The good news, if there is any, is that it really only cost us about $65, and supposedly there is video surveillance of the garage. So we are hoping our building manager can find our the culprit because it has to be someone with access to our building. So sad, but could have been worse.

My lovely friend Patricia and I stumbled onto a charming little second-hand bookstore in my neighborhood and I may have found the perfect present for my mom for Christmas.

On that same jaunt with Patricia I though I was going to witness my first mugging, when we heard a deafening bang! but it turned out that a girls tire had just blown out on her bike, just as we were passing this flower street vendor.

We found out that if Romney gets elected in 2012, he will be in our ward because technically, the White House is in our boundaries.

I found out that to get my hair done at a beauty school here, a cut is $18. Awesome. Highlights? $70. Pretty ridiculous for a student haircut. I don't even want to know what a salon would cost.

We finally figured out how to hide certain individual's wall posts on facebook without actually un-friending them (thanks to Bill). How did I not know this before?!

I think we live in the hipster mecca of DC. A guy was acutally handing out free stick-on mustaches the other day at the metro. They try so hard to seem like they aren't trying at all don't they?

Bobby

2011-08-16T14:10:00.001-07:00

Speaking of delicious food, today was the grand opening of Bobby's Flay's Burger Palace, just up the street from my office and a couple of the attorneys in my office bought a bunch of us lunch and it was wonderful. I got the Napa Valley burger, which had fresh goat cheese, watercress and Meyer lemon honey mustard. SO so good, and the sweet potato fries were fantastic as well.

The cherry on top? Bobby was there, in person, for big grand opening. You know I love a good celebrity sighting!

Delicious DC

2011-08-15T13:58:00.001-07:00

I am one of those people who would like to be a foodie. If I had the budget, yes. I would be all over that. But alas, we are not at a stage in our life when we can really justify that lifestyle. However, we do love trying new, delicious food and DC has certainly provided wonderful new places to delight our tastebuds. On one of our first weekends in the District, two cute couples from our ward invited us to go to dinner with them at 2Amy's. An amazing, neopolitan-style pizza place that is just up the street from the National Cathedral and it was incredible. I got one of the specialty pizzas--a chantrelle mushroom creation that was really yummy, and Brody got the Norcia (Tomato, salami, grilled pepeprs, fresh mozerella and grana), I must admit-- his was better and SO good. We will definitely be going back.

Last weekend, we were again invited to go to dinner with the cute Ali and Brian (who are also from Salt Lake) to Zaytinya's and it was SO good. It's a tappas-style restaurant but they call them Mezze's because that's the middle-eastern word for it. We got four little dishes overall and they were each really tasty and totally different. First was a delicious tapia of feta, tomatos and peppers (so good), then we got the Falafel (a new favorite food of mine thanks to my lovely and amazing friend Patricia), this UNBELIEVABLY delicious lamb. It seriously melted in your mouth and was served in this thick, creamy sauce that was to die for. Seriously. And then a chicken kabob dish that was also really juicy and yummy. They also give you delicious pita bread, hot and fluffy, right out of the oven.

Afterwards we headed over to Good Stuff Eatery in Capitol Hill and got the famous toasted marshmellow shakes that were just the right amount of thickness and flavor. It was fantastic and we can't wait to try more!

Busy Bee

2011-08-11T07:50:00.000-07:00

Brody was at scout camp all last week which was an interesting experience for me. Not because he was gone, but because it was the first time I was really on my own here. In a city where I know very few people. And although I wasn't thrilled about him being gone for his birthday, I kept myself very busy...

After getting off work each night I would come home and get the itch to do something around the apartment, you know when you just get an idea in your head and can't rest until it's done? So, on Monday night I painted the rest of our kitchen--the previous tenant had painted one of the walls grassy green and the rest were a light buttery yellow (so ugly) so I painted them all a nice light greige that we had used for the rest of the apartment. We used the paint/primer and it worked like a charm, we only needed 2 coats to cover the red and purple.

Tuesday night I went and got some paint at a hardware store in capitol hill and painted our Ikea rug we got a month or so ago. After about ten minutes of the guy at the hardware store looking at me like I was crazy to paint a rug, he finally sold me a quart of Benjamin Moore's Newburg Green, which is actually a really nice blue color which I used to paint a lovely striped pattern (surprise, surprise) using this Lands End rug as inspiration.

Wednesday night I decided I couldn't live with the grassy green color of our bathroom from the previous tenant so I just mixed some of the paint in our pantry from the previous tenant, mixing purple, green and a light cream color) it turned out to be a nice chocolately-milk color (and it was free which makes it just that much better).

I didn't take a picture of the green bathroom, but it's the same color as this wall in the kitchen

Thursday night I painted all of our mis-matched dining chairs with a base coat of more of the cream color from the pantry, and Friday night I painted them all white (which I again found in the pantry) and switched out the upholstery to some burlap I had. And by the time Brody got back on Saturday, just in time for our anniversary, he came home to a very different apartment :) Of which you will have to wait and see the full glory of the before and after photos, but here are some ugly before's

The horrific green in the kitchen, and the entire bathroom was this color too

The ugly red/ buttery yellow bedroom

And the purple/red living and dining room.

A Kindred Sprirt

2011-08-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

I'm always on the hunt for a good design blog and I found a gem today, A Life Design, has gorgeous photos and inspiration for interiors, exteriors, architecture, etc. And her style seems to be very similar to mine -restrained, balanced - modern casual/coastal/country chic, if that even counts as a style. I love all the design blogs out there but sometimes it's nice to see more than ikat pillows, a chevron rug and a suburst mirror ya know? It's a little less trendy and a little more timeless which I love. As designer and architect John Saladino said, "I like to imply rather than be explicit. When you do that, you're hopefully designing somthing that won't embarrass you in 30 years."

The Golden Mean

2011-08-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

I remember sitting in a history class in high school learning about Aristotle and his theory about the Golden Mean, which is essentially the "desirable middle between two extremes". I think it was Mr. Haye's class, and unlike so many other lessons from high school, this one has always stuck with me. I have always remembered it and tried to keep my action, opinions, etc. within that golden realm. Tried being the keyword there (not to mention the golden ratio, which is also key for design and photography, but that's a little off topic)...
Living in Washington, particularly this week with all the craziness around the debt deal, and working with highly educated, extremely well-informed individuals, I've learned to appreciate just how right Aristotle was. I've also learned that when it comes to politics/policies/parties/etc. there is no "good guy". I've never had good feelings for politicians and in the past, and have really just tried to stay out of it altogether. I still hate politics, but living here you really can't get away with 'staying out of it'. You live in it.

That being said, it's really become clear to me there there is no right and wrong, there is only bad and worse. No one party or piece of legislation is all good or all bad. For example, I love the environment, I'm all about re-usable energy, recycling, all of that good stuff. But I also drive a car, use electricity constantly and really don't want to pay more than I already do for those goods and services. So you have to compromise. Just like those fools on the hill have to compromise. And luckily they finally did, and as disheartening and sometimes scary as extreme partisan politics can be, it's comforting to know that, that is how the government is supposed to be. The founder's set up the Constitution to purposely make it difficult to change or enact new laws, so that one party or person doesn't have more power than they should. They did that so that things would usually have to fall within that golden mean to get passed. And that makes me feel a little better.

And because, what would a blog post be without a pictures, here are a few snapshots from around the city I've taken with my phone over the last couple of weeks

Dupont Circle on a Friday night

Chinatown

Reagan airport

Capitol Hill/ Eastern Market neighborhood

Update

2011-07-27T19:29:00.001-07:00

We are starting to really love life in the city. I can't tell you how wonderful my 8-minute "commute" to work is. Not to mention the free soda fountain at my office (there goes my no diet coke goal). Dupont is an incredible neighborhood to live in. There is always something going on, tons of restaurants and cute little shops, and an amazing farmer's market just off the circle on the weekends. H&M, Zara, Urban Outfitters and a 3-story Forever 21 are a mere two metro stops away and Brody will only have a 15-minute walk or 5-minute bike ride to school. We had our official first glimpse of the presidential motorcade yesterday, and already have callings in our ward. Which we are loving.

We went to Trader Joe's for the first time tonight and I must admit. It is pretty amazing. I was skeptical that it would live up to all the hype, but judging from our half-empty container of INCREDIBLE tomato-basil hummus, I would say we've been converted :)

On a somber note, Brody's grandpa unexpectedly passed away on the 17th and it's been hard not being there for his mom and family and we hope they know how much we love and miss them. We were lucky enough to get to spend a little time with him the day before we left, I know that meant a lot to Brody. His grandpa was always so warm and sweet, and we will definitely miss him!

Wisdom

2011-07-23T22:34:00.000-07:00

I've never wished I went to Harvard as much as I do right now.

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination
J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilizes thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much

It's not (quite) another book, but still definitely worth a read. Love her.

by the way, have you signed up yet?

Lately

2011-07-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

It's been disturbingly hot the last few days. Today the high was something like 104. Which is bad sure, but I've quickly learned that in a humid climate, you want to pay attention to the heat index, not temperature. The heat index is what it actually feels like with the humidity and today's topped out at a lovely 121 !!!!!!! I never thought I would be so grateful for the little things, like air conditioning and dreyer's strawberry fruit popsicles (Although out here Dreyer's is called "Edy's). I don't know how people survived pre-refrigeration. It literally feels like someone is blowing a hair dryer in your face. but steamier.

Delaware

2011-07-20T21:17:00.000-07:00

Delaware. Hi, I'm in Delaware... (that was for you sisters)

Brody and I drove to the charming Lewes Beach, in Delaware on Wednesday, it's only about 2 hours from DC and it was wonderful to get in one last hurrah before I start working next week.
I've had too many bad sand experiences to take my SLR to the beach so all these are from my iphone.

Then we went to this cute little restaurant on their fisherman's wharf for lunch. I had a delicious Santa Fe Salad, and Brody got a lobster roll with bacon and avocado. I was so happy he could have some fresh seafood, it's his fave.

We crossed the Chesapeake Bay on our way, it was beautiful and one of the bigger suspension bridges we've been on so far.

We wrapped up the day in Bethesda with some delicious frozen yogurt and the Apple store replaced Brody's phone for FREE even though the broken front glass wasn't covered under warranty. LOVE when that happens :)

It was a beautiful day!

The End

2011-07-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

In honor of the last Harry Potter movie coming out on Friday, I thought I would share some of my favorite images/quotes the I found on Pinterest.

And to the incredible JK Rowlig, thank you!!!! You re-ignited my love of reading :)

What I've learned So Far

2011-07-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

The last two weeks have been chock full of learning experiences for me. Not just with the actual move itself, but from living in a new city, new climate, new lifestyle, everything! Which is awesome, I love learning and experiencing new things.

Everything has reinforced our love/testimony of the gospel. It is amazing and so comforting to know that no matter where you go, you have a network of total strangers there to love and support you.
I can't drive here. Honestly, I was behind the wheel for maybe 45 seconds before I got pulled over (for allegedly rolling through a stop sign). Luckily the lady just felt bad for me and gave me a warning. But I've officially banned myself from driving in the District. It's INSANE. So many one-way streets, teeny tiny narrow lanes, crazy drivers, and lanes that change direction depending on what time of day it is! Seriously!
If you ever decide to move cross country, sell your tv first and just get a new one when you get there.
Humidity is disgusting!!! Well humidity makes me disgusting, haha! However, being sweaty and gross is exponentially less embarrassing when everyone else is too.
When it rains here, it pours. And I don't mean that in the metaphoric sense. I mean when it rained the other day, my shirt,pants, shoes were SOAKED and I even had an umbrella.
I have no idea how people survived before air conditioning. Seriously it blows my mind.
Women here dress slutty not to be slutty, but to survive in the horrific heat.
I love public transportation, but paying $200+/ month for parking makes me ill. We can't bring ourselves to do it. It also makes me realize how much I took for granted, grocery shopping without a car is no easy task
Everyone uses reusable grocery bags here because they charge you $0.15/bag if you want plastic ones.
IKEA furniture isn't that bad to assemble, slow and steady wins the race!
There are activists everywhere
Zara might be a problem, its amazing
I miss my large capacity washer and dryer
AT&T actually kind of works here, it's weird, we can actually receive phone calls in our apartment!
Being able to paint your apartment is great and all, except when the previous tenant paints crimson red on one wall, purple on another, and grass green in the bathroom and kitchen. Gag me. You'll see what I mean in some before and after pictures soon enough
Apparently Utah has some of the worse drivers in the country (from the words of the insurance agent) so our car insurance is cheaper here

Our first 4th of July in the District

2011-07-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

It was so fun to be here for the 4th of July!! We started the day off by eating lunch at Shake Shack (amazing) then headed over to the Capitol where our wonderful friends Adrien and Eric had saved seats on the west lawn for the free concert

After waiting in the disgusting heat for a few hours, (don't worry mom they were handing out free water bottles and I kept hydrated) we saw the likes of Josh Groban, Matthew Morrison (the teacher guy on Glee), Steve Martin who played the banjo with his band, Jordan Sparks, and the National Symphony Orchestra. The best part, it was free!

So we drove across the country

2011-07-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

And honestly, there's just a whole lot of nothing in the middle of the country. But it was beautiful and we took some pictures. I'll try to differentiate the landscapes but they all pretty much look the same between Wyoming and Pennsylvania... (pretty much all of these were taken of the windows of the car so forgive me)

Wyoming:

lots and lots of windmills

Nebraska:

Crossing the Mississippi into Iowa

lots and lots of bugs on the front of the car...
Illinois, Indiana and/or Ohio?:

Crossing through a tunnel in the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania

Finally the light at the end of the tunnel!

We were really so lucky and didn't have any issues during the drive or move-in. 4th of July pictures to come...

We're heeeere!

2011-07-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

2,076 miles, zero flat tires or tickets, one moving trailer, 8 missionaries to help us unload, two parking permits from the city, and more boxes of than we know what do with .... and we made it!

Yep

2011-06-20T21:12:00.000-07:00