The wrong kid

Cohen asked for a haircut. I was a little sad because I loved his long hair. He told me he wanted it short like Perry and Rhett's hair (his cousins). He's a whole new kid.

Before:

After:

You should have seen the pile of hair on the floor. I think he lost two pounds.

Optimus Prime is a Troublemaker!

A lesson learned this year... DO NOT BRING TRANSFORMERS TO CHURCH! To preface this, Cohen got Optimus Prime for Christmas from his buddy.

1. We let him take him to church the week after Christmas. The boys in the pew in front of us were crying because they couldn't play with him.
2. The following week a young boy brought his Optimus Prime into Primary to use as part of his talk (it was about gifts and of course, Optimus is his favorite). During our opening exercises, the boy sat patiently with Optimus on his lap (as instructed by his father), all the boys around him - including Cohen - wouldn't pay attention to what was going on. They were all rubbernecking towards the boy and it ended in the poor boy crying and his father taking Optimus away until it was time for his talk.
3. Today, Optimus made it into the church bag. We sat by Cohen's cousins during Sacrament Meeting. Everyone wanted to play. They were all so loud and I was embarrassed. The 20 something kid behind us was staring longingly at it also. His wife swatted his head a few times.

Sorry Optimus, I know we should lovingly open our arms to all who wish to worship, but you must stay home from now on.

PS. I just finished Austenland by Shannon Hale. Fabulous light reading for all of you lovesick for Mr. Darcy and Edward fans out there. It makes it all seem so silly... but justifies it all, too.

Another Novel

I just finished reading Second Chance, by Jane Green. It was boring and I had a hard time staying focused. But I finished. I wouldn't recommend it for book club unless you are middle-aged and thinking about leaving your husband. Boooooooooooooo!

We're on our way to the library so I'll pick up another stack. I made a pretty cute little garland, but the battery of my camera died. I'll have to pick up some of those later, too.

PS. In case you didn't notice, I added the "Books I've Read in 2008" in the right column. The last few picks have been entertaining but not really stellar like I am looking for. I'd like any suggestions you may have. What have you read lately?

Christmas Leftovers

I don't have a lot to write about. I have been reading and cleaning out closets. I love this time of year because I focus on getting organized and remember to do the things I love the most. I really love reading and that is why my sewing area is such a wreck.

Today I finished reading a book by Christopher Moore titled, "You Suck". It was only coincidence that it is about vampires... I PROMISE! It was seeming unnecessarily crass and I was tempted to put it down about 1/4 of the way through it, but then my favorite character, Abby Normal, was introduced. Hahaha! She was so awesome and saved the book.
A review on Amazon describes her best:

The highlight of the novel is the new character Abby Normal, a moody teenage vampire wannabe who identifies Thomas's otherworldly nature in a drugstore and becomes his
minion. Abby is refreshingly naive and eager-to-please as she speaks in Gothic prose with her Dark Lord and his Countess Jody. The most winning chapters are told in her
gangster/Olde English/squealing teenage voice from her diary.

I just started reading another one called "The Master Bedroom" and so far it is pretty good. I'll let you know how it pans out.

So, the ornaments in these pictures were made from paper to put on our neighbor gifts. They are super easy and completely addictive. This is a quick explanation on how to assemble them.
1. Cut six circular shapes - I have this scalloped punch
2. Fold them in half - I used the back side of a spoon, but I am sure a bone folder works better
3. Glue them together with a quick drying glue - I used a hot glue gun
4. Glue a string or rickrack in the middle before you adhere the last two. - I used more vintage rickrack that I purchased with the brown I mentioned in the last post.

I wonder if it would work with hearts for Valentines Day... I'll have to try it. Happy reading!

I made something for myself...

So, I've been accused of being "boy crazy", so I thought I'd talk about something besides sexy fictional characters in this post. But before I dive into crafty talk, we saw Juno last night and it was fabulous... and there were no sexy boys in it. :-)

This season, blogland was covered with these scrap wreaths. I loved them so much, I made three in one evening. The above wreath is not so much a Christmas wreath as it is a winter wreath, but I did put it away with the Christmas stuff. I think I'll get it back out. I'm loving the woodland creatures lately.
I found the deer template in the back of my holiday issue of Martha Stewart. I just traced them out of the magazine, but I am sure the templates are somewhere on her site. I just used fusible webbing to adhere the deer to the tree fabric. I stuffed a little batting behind that and then sewed it to the wool felt. Tied to the wreath with simple jute and Viola!

Not bad, eh? I've almost used up the 50+ yards of vintage brown rickrack that I bought almost 10 years ago when I worked at Piece Goods. I'm hoarding the last few feet of it.

Ultimate Chick Flick

I went to see "PS I Love You" last night with some friends. I recommend it to all females, but maybe not males. There was not one dude in the entire theater, but there were a lot of sniffling females. Grab your girlfriends and get going! Take off your mascara before you go and bring tissues, or wear long sleeves, because you'll need something to blot the tears with.

It was so funny and so sad and just so awesome. I'm normally not a Hillary Swank fan, but she is fabulous for this part. Honestly, this movie will make you love your husband/boyfriend/sig. other so much and reiterate how lucky you really are. Plus, the men in the movie are pretty easy to look at. Hillary's coats and boots are fabulous, too.

Once Bitten...

Last week my friend Lindsey lent me the first three books in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I think I am one of the last females on the planet to read these books. I guess I never thought I'd get very into a teeny-bopper vampire romance novel, being that I am so mature, you know? ;-) However, I started reading Twilight on Thursday night and finished Eclipse about 2:00 am on Monday morning. I didn't know much about these books, and I thought these three books were the complete series. I was uneasy with the outcome and woke up Mike to try and chat about it. He started snoring again half way through my rant. I was pretty grumpy and stayed awake for another hour milling it all over in my head.

The next morning I went strait to the Internet Gods to answer my questions. No questions were answered right away because I got caught up in fansites. HOLY MOLY! I know people love their precious Harry Potter, but when a gigantic flock of females get their hands on something, it is likely to erupt and become contagious. The world has Edward Cullen mania. Luckily I was was meeting Lindsey later that morning and I was able to talk about the book and get the hysteria I was feeling out of my system... Hurrah! There are more books coming!


Once I started telling people I was reading these (at first I was a little embarrassed), I was not prepared for the responses I'd receive. Everyone, with the exception of my father-in-law, loved them. I could not believe the level of infatuation that was present... almost unhealthy, ladies! One of my pals said their book club meeting turned into a husband/boyfriend bash-fest rather than talking about the book. They needed their significant others to be more like Edward. Now, I agree that they've portrayed Mr. Cullen extremely sexy, but I have just dropped my jaw at the mayhem.

I've had crushes on fictional characters before:

• Mr. Darcy in High School after reading Pride & Prejudice.
• Wolverine in college after being introduced to the X-Men movies.
  
• Ronald Weasley while on maternity leave after reading finally taking the time to read the first four Harry Potter books.
• William Turner from Pirates.

And now, at the ripe old age of 29 when crushes should be gone... Edward Cullen, the sexy 17-year-old vampire from the Twilight series. Ha! Ha! I think it is all so funny. Yesterday I logged onto Meyer's MySpace account (for research, of course!) and found profiles of all of the books characters with someones interpretation of how these vampires look. The images chosen were nothing short of god/goddess status. What I found most interesting was that these FICTIONAL CHARACTERS had over 50,000 friends on their contact list. Girls were leaving pictures of themselves with their cleavage and necks bare with comments like, "Bite me, Edward." So silly.

Now I'd like to comment on why this is surprising for me. The books aren't even written very well. They are really simple and juvenile, and extremely repetitive. How many times can we read, "His eyes flickered with anger" or "He wrapped his arm around my waist" and "I shuddered at the thought of it"? But these books are rather compelling and it is very easy to get carried away in the story. Meyer has a hit the target with these books. It is a good story and it the reader to take sides. I am not sure who I am rooting for. Edward the vampire or Jacob the werewolf. Doesn't it seem we should all be voting for Mike, the human?

Anyway... what a book! I can't wait for the next one and I really hope the movie does the book justice. I don't think I'll read Meyer's new alien book. I'm not much for aliens. But, I've never been much for vampires and werewolves either.

How about you? Do you like these books? Are you team Edward or Jacob? Or... are you Switzerland?

My "Totily" Neglected Journal

I have been an avid journal writer for the majority of my life. I remember getting a little red silk diary and address book for Christmas when we lived on Agate Drive in Carson City, NV. That means I was between 5 - 7. I wrote about all of my collections that I had and all the places I'd visited in my short life and that was about it. I do remember watching an episode of Punky Brewster and Cherie (her best friend that wore headbands) read her diary and it had some juicy gossip that she told everyone. I totally wanted my journal to contain juicy gossip, so the following day I wrote about how I saw a "totily (yes... that is how it is spelled) cute guy" at my baton twirling practice. Like I knew what a cute guy was... well, I still think Ricky Schroder is pretty fly.

Anyway, that lead to a long life of journal writing. I can read about almost every day of my life from age 9 until age 22. Every fight with a friend, every time Kory Hill or Curtis Browning talked to me (if either of you ever come across this, yes... I loved you both for years), and my first kiss. I can read about my very first day of junior high, high school, college, and entering the MTC as a missionary. My trip to Italy. When I was crowned Homecoming Queen and when I was elected into SBO. All sorts of "totily" awesome stuff.

After I got home from my mission, I just stopped writing. Why?? That is when everything got good. I moved back to Utah, I fell in love, I got married, I graduated from college, I had a baby, I had my first career job... wow! Really important stuff. Every 6-8 months I write a few pages summarizing what has happened, but there is no emotion in it.

I cracked open my most recent journal to find an entry from January 02, 2007. This is how it starts:

I don't know why I stopped writing my daily journal entries. It seems like I have a lot more to talk about now than I did in high school. My 2007 New Years resolution is to quit neglecting my children of learning about their mom and start writing in my journal.

I guess I failed that resolution. Woops! I sort of have important stuff documented on the blog, but not really.

So, with that long introduction, these are my 2008 New Years Resolutions:

1. Write in my journal at least once a week (I need to make it attainable)
2. Cut TV time in half (I think I know every Playhouse Disney morning show theme song)
3. Craft more for myself (I give EVERYTHING away)
4. Wear high heels at least once a week (Church doesn't count - this will be tricky)
5. Start exercising again (I was so diligent last year until summer and then my gym membership expired and I got lazy)
6. Reconnect with old friends and RETURN CALLS (I know - this isn't my strong point)

I think that will be a good start. I've started organizing the house and it is clean. A fresh start for 2008.