Breathtaking

After seeing these images, how could you not believe in God?

Some images speak for themselves.

I love Colorado.

There's a possibility

that I'm (a little) obsessed with the New Moon soundtrack. It's really good. So, to give you a taste, here are some of my favorite songs from the album.


Editors - "No Sound But The Wind"


Lykke Li - "Possibility"


Thom Yorke - "Hearing Damage"


Hurricane Bells - "Monsters"

10 Things About Me

Inspired by Carissa's post.
Introducing... 10 things about me!

1. I love wikipedia. I can spend hours article jumping. Some past topics I've looked up are marsupials (wallaroos to be exact) and the etymology of our days of the week.
2. I've had plastic surgery on my nose. You know the part that separates your nostril, your septum? Well, mine was disfigured to the point that it partially blocked both nostrils, so they fixed that. But on my medical records it say "rhinoplasty" which is what they call cosmetic nose plastic surgery as well.
3. I have a really hard time understanding lyrics. But I memorize lyrics really easily. So I'm often walking around, singing the wrong, but sound-very-close-to-right lyrics to songs. Kurt understands lyrics really well but doesn't remember them well. Together we're either the perfect team, or the completely wrong team (depending on which parts of us you combine).
4. In my writing, I love using ;'s and --'s. And ()'s. They're fun.
5. I love Thursdays. I'm not sure why. I just do.
6. I have recurring nightmares about my teeth falling out, tornadoes, and, strangely, dinosaurs. I kid you not.
7. I wish I had to wear glasses all the time. I think my glasses are cute and I like the way I look with them on. But I'm not supposed to or my eyes will get addicted to them, or something like that.
8. I love earrings and necklaces, but never wear rings (other than my wedding ring) or bracelets.
9. When I work out, I hate having hair on my neck. Drives me bonkers and makes me feel hotter! I don't understand girls who can run with their hair down. Just seeing them makes me feel antsy.
10. I only get out of bed at :05, :10, :15, :20, and so on. I started it as a way to stay in bed a little longer. Now it's a compulsion. Which is appropriate since I'm OCD (literally... just ask my doc).

NaNoTRYMo Final Weigh In

Chapters: 4.5
Pages: 76
Words: 22,370

Total written in November:
Chapters: 2.4
Pages: 39
Words: 11,483

I obviously did not get through half of my book, but I'm proud of my effort just to same. I hope I continue my writing trend, though I have about 200 pages (maybe more) to read for grad school by January 2nd, so we'll see.

Falling Leaf

On Wednesday we took Caroline snowboarding. It was so much fun and she did really well! The temperature was probably somewhere in the upper 30s--so nice--and the snow was pretty decent. Have I mentioned I love snowboarding? Because I do. A lot.

Caroline taking a break.

Feeling triumphant after a full day of snowboarding.

Feeling sore after a full day snowboarding. Maybe I am getting old. ;)

The rest we didn't get pictures of:
Wednesday night, Steph flew in. On Thursday morning, we played football with some of Kurt's coworkers and even got Steph to play (which is quite a feat). Oh, and my team won--woohoo! Thursday evening, Laryn and Sheilla and Laryn's brother, and James and Camille, came over for dinner and thanks to a very frozen turkey (it'd be thawing all night and all day and still was frozen in the middle!), we didn't eat until 8 but dinner was very delicious!! Oh, and we played mafia while we waited for dinner. On Friday morning, Steph, Caroline, and I got up at 7 and hit up the mall for some early bird shopping. Then we watched New Moon. Then we took naps and it was awesome. On Saturday Caroline left, and I showed Steph around downtown Denver. Yesterday was church and just hanging around Denver and home. Oh, and Saturday we watched the Cougars beat the Utes! Huzzah!! We had a great Thanksgiving break that flew by WAY too quickly!!!!

Quarter of a Century

I can't believe I'm 25 now. I feel so young! It also helps that my husband is 28. :D
For my birthday, we went to eat a Thai restaurant in west Denver we discovered recently. The food was delicious and the company even better!

Sheilla and Jen

Laryn and Sheilla

Nate and Wendie

Kurt and Jeff, the facial hair crew (Kurt shaves his mustache tonight... YES!!!)

Guess who


My best friend, Caroline! Caroline came down for Thanksgiving week and it was amazing!! It was so good to see my sister! And Steph flew in on Wednesday night and it was so great having the three of us together. I hate living so far from my sisters!

Laryn promised me $10 if I drank his spicy curry broth. So I did. Now I'm $10 richer.

This sign is hard to read, but I promise it's worth the effort.

NaNoTRYMo Weigh In

Book stats:
Chapters: 4.1
Pages: 68
Words: 20,082

It's really coming along! I'm averaging 15 pages and 1 chapter a week. Not bad!

NaNoTRYMo Weigh-In

Chapters: 3
Pages: 50
Words: 14,671

I clearly will not finish half of my book this month. A normal month, I'd still have a fair chance at it. But next week is Thanksgiving and both of my sisters are coming to stay with us (yay!!). So this will be my last week of writing for the month. In light of that, I'm going to write my butt off.
If only I could literally write my butt off. I'd be achieving two goals at once!!

Santa #3

I bought my third Santa yesterday. It was love at first sight. I wish the picture was bigger!
(My mom gave me Santa #2 for Christmas last year. I need to get a picture of him up.)

Also, I'm really tempted to put my Christmas decorations up. We're leaving for my parents' house on the 19th of December and I want more than 25ish days to enjoy my decorations!
Maybe I'll wait for 20th. That'll give me a month. :D

NaNoTRYMo Weigh In

As of right now (haven't worked on my book for the day yet) I have:
42 pages
12,380 words
2.3 (ish) chapters

I haven't made a ton of progress, but I have made progress. This chapter is proving to be difficult because it's just filler stuff (the detail stuff between the big stuff... I just said stuff a lot).

And I missed writing yesterday and Sunday because I have bad writer's block. Just. need. to. get. over. it.

Happy NaNoWriMo!

Well, I just learned that November is National Novel Writing Month. This is very fun news to me since I am a writer and I am currently writing a book. Actually, a series of three books for which I've got the outline nearly done and 2 chapters in the first book written. The official goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month. Instead, I'm going to participate in the Pikes Peak NaNoTRYMo. :D
Goals (and consequently doubling as my monthly goals):
Write something every day of the month--check my writing blog to see what I write every day!
Write at least half of my first book
I'm going to post my progress every Monday. So as of today, November 2nd, I have written:
2.1 chapters
37 pages (double spaced)
10,887 words

I won't be able to attend Pikes Peak Writers weekly write-ins because they're in Colorado Springs, which is an hour away. Instead, I'll write on my own every Tuesday from 5 to 8. But I do plan on attending the write-a-thon on the 21st. Locking myself in a building with complete strangers and nothing to do but write? Sounds like fun to me.
Wish me luck!

PS--Here's NaNoWriMo's official webpage.

Samhain

In direct opposition to last year, we had a really fun Halloween weekend this year. It started with a party thrown by some friends in the ward on Friday night. Here are my snowy graveyard brownies I took:


Kurt and James getting in some Mario Kart before the party. They are addicted. It's sad.

Kurt and I went as Apollo and Artemis. It was recycling a costume for me and Kurt's was the easiest thing in existence. But I really liked how they turned out!

Where's Waldo?

James and Camille's costumes were so cute. She was Carmen Sandiego and he was Waldo. Classic.
On Saturday, we went for my birthday present to see WICKED!! It was so awesome and I LOVED it! Happy birthday to me! (pic forthcoming)
Then Saturday night we went to Kurt's coworker's party and even though we were the only sober ones (sodas in the fridge for us!) we actually had a really fun time. Most people didn't drink to excess, but there were a few girls dancing on the coffee table. I forgot the camera and I'm really bummed because one of Kurt's coworkers, who is white, painted himself black and shaved his head and went as Mister T and another was Lady Gaga with the sweetest costume ever. I wish I'd gotten pics!
Lucky me! Candice sent me a pic of the two of us.

Gaga and Goddess
And the best part of the whole night was when we invited Mister T to church with us the next morning. He said no but said definitely another day! Wahoo!

Octizzard

What happens when you have a 2 day long blizzard in the middle of October? An Octizzard
From Tuesday night to Thursday night, we got over a foot of snow. Work was cancelled for two days and the four of us holed up in our house with movies and way too much food. And lots of playing in the snow with Zumi. That dog loves him some snow. In fact, on Wednesday night he wouldn't come in until 11, preferring to nap in the snow rather than inside.

I think this is Thursday morning.

By the time all was said and done, the snow was as high as Zumi's head. This is Thursday morning.

My snow puppy





Playing in the snow is hard work!

Sea Green

So a few weeks ago I finally decided on a wall color for our bathroom: sea green. Quite a departure from the brown stripes I was thinking of doing. The poor Winfield's still have not closed on our house, and Camille still hasn't found a job, so she's been all kinds of stuff around our house including painting the bathroom for us! She rocks! And the bathroom is so pretty now!

It's Zumi's Day!

Happy birthday to my Zoomster! He's a year old today!
To commemorate it, and also because we ran out of his food, we bought a bag of dog food. That's right, not puppy food, DOG food.
*Sniff* My puppy's all growed up.

Froota or Frooeeta?

Two weekends ago, James, Camille, Kurt, Zumi, and I went to Fruita, CO, for some mountain biking adventure. Well, Zumi had some sitting-in-his-crate-in-the-car adventure. I believe he loved every dang second of it. Fruita is directly west of Denver by 4 hours and apparently it's a mountain biking hot spot. Well, we love mountain biking and hot spots so it was the perfect destination for us.
We left on Friday after work and got in around 10. Kurt and I got there first and by the time James and Camille arrived, I was already snug in my sleeping bag.

The next morning the boys got up at 6 for some early biking while Camille and I slept in till 9, when I could pick up my rental bike. And we got delicious breakfast burritos from Nathy's. After getting my bike, we met up with the boys and biked it up in the 18 Road area.

I look so good in bike shorts!! (BAHAHAHA)

After that we went back to Nathy's for green chile burritos. Mmmmm, delicious. Just a little heavy. I think we were all feeling a little heavy after that, but it didn't stop us from hitting up one more biking area: Kokopelli. We didn't bring the camera along on this ride either and I'm so sad because it was absolutely gorgeous. We were on the cliffs above the Colorado river and it was just awesome. Well, I had an accident on this ride. I endoed (which means I braked too hard on my front brakes and went sailing over the handlebars) into a ditch, landing on my head and getting all kinds of scraped up. After Kurt saw that I was ok, he quickly assured me it was the funniest thing he'd seen all day. Glad I could oblige, babe!

I have a boo boo.
Then we took my bike back to the shop and headed home. It was a really fun, short trip!

Ode to Diet Dr. Pepper with Vanilla (light on the ice)

Qui.

So delicious.
So refreshing.
So sweet.
So satisfying.
You are the perfect celebration.
Or just-because.
Or I-need-caffeine-like-yesterday.
With just a teensy bit of vanilla,
your true colors really begin to shine.
[And don't forget about the light ice
--that way I get more of you!]
Rain or snow.
Sun or clouds.
I'll journey the 5 miles to Sonic through anything
for a sublime sip of heaven.
[Or maybe like a hundred sips,
but who's counting.]
Ah.

October Goals

My goals this month are:
-Get back to waking up at 6 am (struggling with that lately)
-Lose 15 pounds (believe me, I need it--one of my bipolar meds made me gain that weight in a ridiculously short amount of time... and I don't expect to lose all 10 pounds in one month, of course)
-Keep the apart--house clean
-Do well at work (As of Thursday, I'll have worked at Axa for a year. Craziness.)

Wish me luck cuz I'll definitely need it.

NEWS FLASH

I have been accepted to Converse College's MFA Program!!

Because I've been accepted to 2 programs, I'm going to choose one of them and not apply to the other 3. I'll keep you posted as to what my decision will be!!

Accepted

I have been accepted into the Whidbey Island Writers Association's MFA Program!!!

Time to celebrate.

From Placemats to Pillows

When I read this post, I knew I had to try it! So I hopped down to Pier 1 (which is 2 minutes from my house--glee!), picked out some placemats I like, bought 'em, and brought 'em home. Then I realized I didn't have a sewing machine. So I thought the pillow conversion would have to wait until February when I got my sewing machine.
Weeeeeeellllll, our friends James and Camille just moved here. However, they don't close on their house for another week and a half and we insisted they stay with us (they were planning on living in a hotel room for 2 weeks!). Camille has a sewing machine and she's been showing me the ropes! So I got to do my pillows! Lemme know what you think!



They look so good a) with my turquoise walls and b) on my black and red redone Pier 1 chairs! I seriously think redoing and converting and creating gives me a high. But it's a natural high, so it's ok.
PS--high school playlist is finally up!!

Some Fall Decor

I decided this last week that I was going to buy a fall wreath. I don't have any fall decor yet and this seemed like a good place to start. Plus I knew it would make me happy whenever I drove up to the house. So far, it does. :)

Please disregard the empty flower pot.

I love Kurt.

Yesterday, Kurt asked if I would make a cake for his coworker's birthday today. I said sure. She's my friend as well and, besides, I love to bake.

Last night while making the cake, I asked Kurt if he would help by grating the chocolate bar (I made my favorite: chocolate chip poundcake. I'll post the recipe soon.). He did. I baked the cake and he took it into work this morning.

Today, I got an email from him. At the end of the email, it said:

"Also, your cake is a hit. People are saying, "WOW, you made this?". And I say, "No, my wife made it. I just grated the chocolate.""

A Year's Time

In the last year I...


Moved to Colorado


Visited Moab for the first time


Got a job


Finally saw Coldplay live


Drove through New Mexico for the first time


Sent out our first Christmas cards


Snowshoed for the first time


Experienced an April blizzard


Bought a puppy


Went to my first Rockies game


Ran my first 10k


Bought a house


Painted 6 rooms of said house


Said goodbye to my long hair


Went above 14,000 feet


Made awesome friends and had awesome friends move here from Utah


Was diagnosed with bi polar disorder


Visited St. Louis for the first time


Took Zumi above 14,000 feet


Served as a support crew

I can't believe we've been in Denver for a whole year! And yet when I look back on it, I realize we've done a TON of stuff! Life is good and I'm extremely happy.