Sickies

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

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

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

 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

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.

Wait, is that......?

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

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 :)