packing and moving.

The worst.

So far we have about twenty boxes packed, and there's still a room and a half to go.  Every time I turn around there's another pile of something that still hasn't been packed.  There's also the entire closet, both dressers, and my unpacked suitcase from Thanksgiving to deal with.

And we have a lot more lamps than I realized.  How do you pack a lamp?!

a first for everyone.

Thanksgiving yesterday was great.  Family. Food. Turkey coma.  The end.

But AFTER dinner is when my dad got the crazy idea to head over to Sears for their pre-Black Friday event.  He said he "just wanted to see what all the fuss was about."

So at eight o'clock we piled in the car and found a line wrapped around the far side of the store.  And yes, we ventured inside.  They did have some pretty good sales on men's clothing, but nothing in the right style or size for any of our mutants... I mean loved-ones.

Overall, it wasn't as horrible as we expected.  But my mom and I are heading out to JCPenny later today, and that could be dangerous!!

sick.

It's the best. 
I love being sick. 
I love hacking up phlegm and mucus. 
I love only breathing through my mouth. 

I love being completely dependent on nyquil and allergy medicine.


I love it.

the letter O.

I love the monogram trend.  100% love it.  Everything about it.  Just look at this wall from Jones Design Co...  Absolutely gorgeous.

source

 And these yarn-wrapped letters, cork monograms, or even just hanging a painted wood letter on a pretty ribbon...  I'm smitten.

source

source

source

The only downside?  I don't really love the letter O, which is, unfortunately, my new initial.  [Does a year and a half still count as new?]  It's just so boring to me.  And I can't get over it.  I mean, it's just a circle, or an oval, or an egg-shaped blob depending on the font you use.  Sad times.

I think I'm mostly upset by this trend that I can't participate in because I'm totally convinced that if I collected enough O's to fill a wall, at least one of them would look like I mounted a toilet seat.  :(

OH!  Also, as an added bonus [or salt in my wound, as I like to see it] my own personal monogram, if I were to have it embroidered on anything, would be "sOw"...  Yep.  The name for a female pig.  It's a good thing I wasn't thinking about these things when John first asked me for a date...

also...

This week we have made a goal to not eat fast-food more than once.  Or twice.  [We had Arby's today  :-/  as a reward for voting and it's still pretty early in the week.]

As a result of this goal, I have needed to actually cook the food in our pantry.  I know!!  It's been tough.  All forty minutes that I've spent in the kitchen have been brutal!!  Haha.  Not really.  Yesterday I made garlic and brown sugar chicken.  Kind of strange, but pretty delicious.  Today I made some corn chowder, complete with bacon and assorted vegetables.

Tomorrow's menu is leftovers.  And then we'll try to be healthy by eating some more chicken and a nice filling salad.  Yes, I realize that is only four days worth of meals.  But I figure heating up leftovers still counts as me cooking dinner.  So we're good!

Hopefully this will inspire me to keep cooking next week, and the next week, and the next week, and... you get it.

i've never liked math.

My brain just canNOT handle numbers.  That is a fact.  Just ask my 12th grade statistics teacher.

And now they're expecting me to watch a strange map where the states keep changing colors, and add awkward numbers together while eighteen different reporters talk about past elections, and try to decide which TV channel or website or Facebook post is giving me the most accurate prediction of who the President is going to be.

And John just informed me that there is such a thing as "faithless electors."  Seriously?

I'm not going to lie, the low-budget south-east Idaho commercials are better than this.

I may or may not just take a huge swig of NyQuil and wait to see what the result is in the morning. 

In other news... I sat on my cell phone and the kick-stand is now officially broken.  And by broken, I mean permanently extended. 

first world problems. part eighty-two.

We all know I'm a complainer.  And that I'm pretty spoiled.  And sometimes kind of bratty.  So, let's talk about my issues with the Taco Bell drive-thru.

First, I hate going to a drive-thru by myself.  I always feel like a fatty.  Probably because I'm an order-by-picture kind of person, and those menus are ALL PICTURES.  It's just too tempting to order my food and fourteen other things that also look delicious.  So, anyway, I made John come with me tonight on my I'm-hungry-and-I-don't-want-to-microwave-anything Taco Bell run.  We got there, he ordered his tacos, and then I took another five minutes to decide what I wanted.  [I'm pretty sure the guy thought we left.]

The best thing about Taco Bell, in my personal opinion, is that in Rexburg the drive-thru exits directly on to Main Street, so I have never EVER been asked to pull into a parking spot to wait for my food to be ready.   Unfortunately, today the silly boy in the window forget to ask John if we wanted any mild sauce.  Worst.thing.ever.  I really like to drown my tacos in mild sauce.  So we always need a handful of those little packets.  And we didn't get ANY!!

I should have just gotten over it, gone home, and eaten my dry, flavorless tacos in peace, right??  WRONG.  I pouted.  In true Sydney fashion.

And my wonderful, amazing, nice, cute, awesome, fantastic, thoughtful husband made an illegal left turn/u-turn/awkward maneuver back into the Taco Bell parking lot, ran inside, and brought back an impressively large handful of mild sauce packets.  He's the best.

The moral of the story is:  If you work the drive-thru at Taco Bell never forget to ask me if I would like any extra sauces.  Honestly, you'll be doing the world a favor by decreasing the number of silly things I have to complain about.

impressive.

Sometimes I see something on the internet [ie. Pinterest] and think to myself  I could totally make that!! 

Most of the time it's a total flop.  Like the pallet-wood headboard that I spent all of fifteen minutes trying to do before giving up.

Other times it's totally awesome.  Like this basket I wove out of craft paper yesterday.

Pretty cool, right??  The whole time I was working on it John kept asking where I learned to do that, and how I figured it out.  All I ever gave him as an answer was "the internet."  Needless to say, homeboy's pretty impressed by my sweet skills.

Now all I need are some delicious strawberries [or cherries] to fill it with, like the original version.

Basically I just want you all to  think  know how awesome I am.
[Although, I could definitely afford to learn a thing or two about my photography from the internet...]

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to impress John with my Olympian-level napping skills.

law school update.

I've decided that it's officially time we start talking about our law school plans.  My theory is that if I talk about it here, it will all seem a little less scary.  Hopefully.

John takes the LSAT at the beginning of December.  As in the FIRST of December.  It's creeping up on us  :-/  So while John studies his cute little bum off, I'm just over here stressing about where the heck we're going to live next fall.  Would you like to see some of our top choices?!

Columbus, Ohio

The Ohio State University has somehow snuck it's way to the top of our list.  I'm not sure how.  But it's starting to grow on me. 

Boston, Massachusetts

Boston University and Boston College are both on John's list.  We would love to live here.  I'm not 100% sure where that love came from, but it's there.

Baltimore, Maryland

Here's where we'll be if we end up at University of Maryland.  Even though Baltimore is the eighth most dangerous place to live  :-/

Cambridge, Massachusetts

 Ahhh... Harvard.  We like to dream big here in the Orr household. 

OK, you caught me.  Those are MY top choices.  There are about seven other places on the list, but they're mostly lame.  And on the wrong side of the country.  [read: too far west.]  I've decided that if we're going to spend three years somewhere for law school then it's going to be somewhere new and exciting and fun and that we've never been before.  Plus, statistics show that you generally end up working the first few years in the same region that you go to school.  I just really, really want to move somewhere different.  You know, branch out.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

hair, cars, and pictures.

1]  I tried to dye my hair.  The key word here is tried.  My natural hair color is about half a shade lighter than black, so trying to lighten it is pretty much impossible without bleach.  Sad day.  Anyway, this is what it looked like the next day...  [I'm not sure what my other hand is doing... just ignore it.]

2]  John's car wouldn't start yesterday.  He had to walk to school.  And he was pretty sure it was the starter that had finally given out.  False.  Just a dirty battery.  But we did learn a good lesson from the experience:  Never call a tow truck in Rexburg.  You're better off just pushing the car the two miles to the mechanic.

3]  We need to have some new pictures taken for this year's Christmas card and I need some cute/clever/funnny ideas.  Pinterest has all but failed me.  I will also be needing a new outfit for said pictures... donations and shopping sprees are welcome.


Oh! Remember that chevron blanket I made?  Well, check it out on my friend Meg's blog post... it looks SO MUCH CUTER with a baby :)

accidents happen.

It's three o'clock in the morning.  We are wide awake.

A four hour nap will do that to a person.

We accidentally fell asleep on the couch.  And then we accidentally woke up and relocated to the bed.  Unfortunately, that has resulted in our current predicament.  Sitting on the bed, watching Prison Break, and blogging.

Also, let me tell you a little story about Prison Break.  It's EVERYWHERE.  Seriously.  And I don't just mean that we know a lot of people who watch it and talk to John about it.  It's on the TV, the iMac, John's laptop, and [currently] John's playing it on his phone.  Technology is truly a blessing.  Well, at least, headphones are a blessing.

I dyed my own hair tonight for the first time.  Tomorrow we'll see if that was an accident, too. 

apartment life.

Remember that time I cleaned my kitchen?  Well, it turns out I shouldn't have spent any time mopping the floors.  A measly two days later the whole thing flooded.  :(

That's right.  Let me tell you a story... oh, and this is the long version, btw.

For about a week out garbage disposal had been acting weird.  We thought maybe there was something stuck in it.  Nope.  Then we thought maybe it needed to be reset.  Nope.  So we called the apartment maintenance to come take a look and what do ya know... it worked perfectly the whole time he was here!  Seriously.  The next morning?  Nothing.  Not even a grinding whirrr-clunk-clunk from that thing!  But whatever.  John's in charge of doing the dishes.  Let him figure it out.

Fast-forward to Monday [post kitchen cleaning].  I woke up earlier than I normally would for an 11 o'clock shift and decided to run the dishwasher.  I was so proud of myself, thinking I'm so clever to do this and I'm such a good little house wife.  Um, yeah.  No.  An hour later I decide I want some toast before heading to work and there's at least an inch of water in my kitchen.  [Thankfully, no chunks of slimy food.]  So I do a little bit of a crazy panic dance, trying to mop up a dishwasher's worth of water with two little rags.

Five full-size towels later...  the floor was relatively dry.  There was probably some still behind the stove and maybe the fridge, but I can't move those.  So I call the apartment office.  Tell them my kitchen is trying to drive me crazy, and can they please take a look at my most-likely-clogged-dishwasher, oh, and by the way our garbage disposal seems to have given up on life.

All is well, right?  Nope.  Monday night I tried to turn on the hall light and failed.  I tried changing the light bulbs.  Nothing.  The light in the laundry closet won't work either.  So I can't do laundry, obviously.  Want to know how long it took me to finally drag my butt over to the breaker box and flip the switch.  Four days.  It would have been longer if we'd had more clean underwear.

The moral of the story is this:  Living in an apartment is great when everything you touch starts falling apart.  All the horrible, mean, resentful feelings I've had about this place were turned a lighter shade of black.  Apartment living definitely has its perks.

Don't get me wrong.  It's still my dream to be on pretty much any house-buying show on HGTV.  [Property Brothers is our #1 pick!!]

one point five.

Years, that is.  Or eighteen months.  Or five-hundred forty-seven days.  Or 13,128 hours.

I don't think I can do any more math... But you get the point.

Love this boy.  For time and all eternity.

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.8

crafturday.

This weekend is the LDS General Conference.  You can learn more, watch it, or read any of the talks here.  As members of the Church, John and I always look forward to the semi-annual event.  Sometimes it seems like a big sacrifice to spend the better part of Saturday and Sunday watching and listening to the disciples of Christ, but it is always ALWAYS worth it in the end. 

All that being said, I'm kind of bad at just sitting and just watching Conference.  So this year I decided that I would work on a craft.  [The 40% off coupon to the craft store might have attributed a little bit to that decision.]

I found this adorable tree-shaped advent calendar just begging to come home with me.  My mom always has several advent calendars out during the holidays and they are so much fun!  I really want to continue that tradition in my own home, so this was the perfect "Conference craft" for me  :)

First, I painted the whole thing green, like a tree.  And then I painted all the little drawers different shades of red and green, and all the knobs a metallic gold to look like ornaments.  I ran into a little bit of a problem after painting them.  Not all the drawers fit easily into all of the spaces.  First I was SO frustrated, because I had a specific pattern that I wanted the colors to go in.  But now I am so happy it didn't work out, because the random mix-and-match look that I ended up with is so much better!

I finished all the painting and sanding on Saturday and saved the last step for the Sunday sessions of Conference.  We had planned to go out to dinner with some friends after the boys got home from the Priesthood session last night, and then come back to our apartment to play games so I needed to clean.  [Needed is kind of an understatement.]  Just for the sake of documenting my effort, here's a picture of my freshly cleaned kitchen.

I also found John's wedding ring while I cleaned!  It had been missing for about a month.  Which tells you how often we completely clear off the counters.  Just being honest over here.

OK, back to crafting.  This morning I pulled out the drawers [one by one so I'd know exactly where they would fit] and added numbers from scrapbooking paper and stickers to complete the advent calendar look.  I LOVE the way it turned out.  It is so funky and mix-and-matchy.  I'm beyond impressed with myself.  Normally when I do crafts like this I try to control too many aspects of them and they just and up looking like I'm trying too hard.  Which I am, but that's beside the point.

Here it is!  It looks better in person.  And without a video game in the background.  I'm so excited to fill each little drawer with candy and messages for John each day leading up to Christmas.  I'm thinking some will be just little love notes, and some will be holiday-related activities, and just some scriptures and uplifting messages to remind us what the season is really all about.  Except for the 22nd.  That day is all about me :)  [And John's brother Dan and his fiancée who are getting married that day!]

my feet hurt.

[that title has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of this post.]

A few weeks ago my lovely friend Meg had a beautiful baby girl  :)  Little Amelia is absolutely precious.  And she needed an equally as adorable birthday present.  Cue the chevron!

This was my first official attempt at piecing a quilt.  It took a while to cut all the triangles and then decide how I wanted the stripes to go, but it was really pretty fast once I got started.  I love how it turned out!!  [sorry the colors are funky... phone-camera plus night-time equal bad news.]

Here's a closer view with one of the embroidered hearts.  I didn't want to really "quilt" the blanket because there's not any batting between the layers so I embroidered hearts like this all over the blanket to keep everything lined up.

I love the way this blanket turned out!!  I almost didn't even want to send it to Millie!!  I wanted to keep it for myself  :)

But I sent it off to Chicago to snuggle that little sweet pea since I can't do it myself.  [what am I gonna do with a baby blanket, anyway?!] 

happy holidays.

I have this horrible habit of completely disregarding the month of October.  I mean, I like Halloween and all, but seriously... let's just get on with the year already!!  In a perfect world there would be no October.  Um, you can still have Halloween... just maybe in August or September.  I don't think Hallmark or Walmart will mind if we move it around.

Mostly I just love pumpkin-flavored treats.  And ALL the good places start to bring them out in the fall.  [If we didn't have to deal with October then fall would come that.much.sooner!!] 

Anyway, this blog is really about how excited I am for our Thanksgiving plans.  We get to go HOME!!  Yay!  And we'll be there for, like, five days.  It's going to be awesome.  I love spending Thanksgiving with my family.  They are the best.  Except when you have to sit next to my brother... then the delicious dinner just doesn't smell quite as nice.  Hahah.  I'm kidding.  He showers especially well during the holidays.  :)  Mama's orders.

And we get to FLY down to Vegas.  Which means we'll actually be there for pretty much that entire time!!  woot woot!  I love when we get to fly places.  Because I absolutely, positively, 100% hate! being in the car for ten hours.  Even when John does all the driving.  I'm just a complainer, I guess.

Now, if you don't mind... I going to go dream about eating pumpkin pie, pumpkin empanadas, and pumpkin ice cream to my heart's content. 

ketchup.

We had some of that delicious french toast again last week, which reminded me that I have a blog that I never write on.  I would apologize, but I actually really like being a slacker.  Anyway, let's catch up, shall we?

John starts his very last semester of undergrad on Monday!  That's pretty exciting.  We've had a pretty relaxing summer this year.  Probably the last in a while.  Next summer we'll be headed [[hopefully]] to a new city to start law school and a new adventure.  I am soooo thrilled by the idea of leaving Idaho far behind.

Two weekends ago we went up to Boise for a mini-vacation.  It was nice to be in an actual city and to get to spend uninterrupted time together.  As soon as we got to the hotel I noticed that we were with spitting distance of a Target and the mall!  [ok, maybe not that close... but better than a 40 minute drive!]

Most importantly I got some new clothes while we were there!  I love new clothes.  And I especially love getting them while all the stores are having their back-to-school sales!!  Score.

We also ate a lot of good food.  As always.  I would distract you with all the pictures I took of my dinners, but that will just make me hungry and then I'll never finish this blog post!!

Last Sunday was my last day in the Primary.  It was sad to think that I won't get to spend most of church with those cute little faces.  Anyway, my lesson was on being grateful for animals.  The boys that were at church on Sunday are still a little young for the lessons.  We mostly ask them yes/no questions and tell them the basic idea of the lesson over and over again.  Sometimes they repeat it, sometimes they stare at us like we're crazy.  But they were so stinkin' cute playing with these hand-puppets I made for the lesson.  Well, except for the lobster...

AND, last but not least, we went to the fair!!  woot woot!  I love the fair in Blackfoot.  It's so much fun.  We went with our friends Paul and Alyssa and really had a great time.

we're pretty cute, huh?

That twisted potato that John's eating was my favorite part of the day, I think.  It's a whole potato, sliced into a spiral and then fried and dipped in ranch.  The perfect mix between french fries and potato chips, I think.

One last thing, and then I'm going to go eat a popsicle, or five.  I found this website of super cute clothes [I mostly just love the skirts] that you can type in your height to make sure it's going to be long enough.  Brilliant, right?  At least for giants like me.  This is the skirt I got in the mail the other day.  I told my mom it kind if looks like feathers, and she called me crazy.

best french toast.

Yesterday I was just grumpy and tired and felt sick all day.  It was not a pleasant day to spend with me at all - even after my five hour nap.  Just ask John.

But I eventually got off the couch and made some dinner... ok, I fake made dinner.  I found these nifty little packets in the meat section that have pre-portioned vegetables and marinated meat for a nice fajita dinner.  AND they were buy one get one free.  So that's what I made for dinner.  But did I eat it?  Heck to the NO!!  It was just so nasty.  I don't know what my probalem was, because John liked it just fine.  But I could not for the life of me even stand to have it in my mouth long enough to actually chew. 

So I laid back down on the couch and pouted for a while because I was still hungry.  Then, after John had gone to work and my stomach had started trying to digest itself, I got on pinterest to see if there were and good baked-donut recipes that I had the ingredients for.  Um, I don't have any sugar, so that was a bust.  But what I did have the ingredients for was even more wonderful.

Nutella. Stuffed. French. Toast.

Yep.  I said it.  Nutella and french toast in the same delicious syrupy forkfull.  Pure heaven.

2 eggs
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/8 cup powdered sugar
*whisked to perfection.
4 slices of bread
generously spread with NUTELLA
*sandwiched together and smooshed.
and commence the french toast making!

Trust me.  You will never, ever eat regular french toast again.  Or, at least, you won't want to.

logan, you kill me.

John and I have been in Logan, UT this week.  And we have very nearly eaten ourselves dead.  Seriously.  Besides going to work every day and taking some nice long naps in the hotel room, we've spent all our time eating.  We already love food and going out to eat, but when you put us in a new town with all new restaurants... oh dear.

Let's start with the icecream, shall we?  This is the Aggie's blue mint ice cream.  I decided it tastes like cookies and creme [made with minty oreos] and dyed blue.  Still delicious.

Ok, so we may have also gotten a couple pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, too.  It was pretty hot in Logan.  :)

Wednesday night we went to the Beehive Grill.  It. was. DELICIOUS.  Mostly because they had these magical, amazing, wonderful fried pickles!!  I love me some fried pickles.  I almost didn't let John have any, but eventually I gave in because I wanted him to share in the joy.  I really can't stress enough how much I love fried pickles.  And these were the BEST. 

The restaurant also has their own homemade root beer that was pretty awesome.  And the rest of our meal was pretty great too.  Honestly, I just wanted to eat my weight in fried pickles...

Out last night in Logan we went to a mexican place that was trying to make us explode.  Just after the flautas that we ordered as an appetizer we were stuffed.  And then they brought our food and, I swear, that burrito was the size of my face.  Just incredible huge.  I took one bite and realized that I was better off saving it for lunch the next day.  This picture does not do our plates justice... think cheese tray and fish platter size.

Overall, we had a great weekend.  It might have had a lot to do with not being in Rexburg, but I think that the SLURPEES we had were definitely a plus, too.

We are happy to be back at home, as much as we might wish we were in Newport with my family instead.  Sleeping in our own bed last night was fabulous.  Absolutely fabulous.

lovely times.

For my Bethie's wedding [are you tired of hearing about it yet?] I wanted to look extra cute.  Mostly because it's a wedding and you always want to look nice at those, but also because I never EVER have the motivation to spend time on my hair and picking out my clothes.  So I woke up three hours before I had to leave to shower, blow dry and straighten my hair, do a little make-up, make my hair look fancy, and pick out a fun outfit and change my mind seventeen times.  This is what I came up with:

a little boho fishtail  :)

a summery skirt paired with chunky heels & a button-up

Pretty cute, right?  Well, compared to a ponytail and scrubs, it's gorgeous!!  And I would like to just say right now, that my hair held together perfectly fine, and it was only after the drive to Idaho Falls in John's car with no AC and the window down that my braid came almost completely unraveled  :(

Brittney, Beth, and me  [don't judge my hair.]

After the reception Brittney came out to Rexburg to have a slumber party with me!!  And on our way to Jack in the Box we almost missed getting her a delicious snow cone at the SnOasis!  They close at 11 and we pulled up right at 10:55!  Man, was she excited about that!  [Ok, I was too!!]  They put ice cream at the bottom of the cup and then the shaved ice and the flavors.  Brittney hadn't had one in a loooong time, and it was definitely one of the many highlights of her trip  :)  [I think the ice cream sounds disgusting, but most people love it.]

comfy clothes & snow cones, what could be better?!

I know what you're thinking, there have been a lot of blog posts without any mention of John.  Don't worry, he's still around!  He's been studying like crazy to take the LSAT in October, so that's why I don't have much to say about him.  But he came with me to the wedding AND even took some pictures with me in the photo booth  :)

aren't we cute  :)

so fun!

 So that was the weekend.  Now we're in Logan.  WHAT?!  I know.  More about our pretend vacation tomorrow  :)

LOVE my girls!!

Once upon a time I lived in an apartment full of girls.  And it was fabulous!!

We bonded over a lot of life-molding experiences [some awesome and some pretty terrible] and became such great friends that I can't even remember what life was like before 509!

this was back in 2009... I think... we're kind of awesome.

Sadly, we're all in different places now.  California, Chicago, Alaska, and yes, some of us are still in Idaho...  And we're all at different places in our lives, but it is just so much fun when we get the chance to get together and talk.


Today, our little Beth was married.  It was a great day to celebrate her new life with Shandon, but it was also a great chance to see some of my girls!!  Especially Brittney who drove all the way from Sacramento to be here!  I love that girl.  I love how no matter how much time passes between our visits we just pick right up where we left off.

I love my girls.  Forever and always.

Bethie's getting married!!

Today is the day.  My lovely little Beth is getting married  :)

It seems like only yesterday that we were all living in our fancy [read: air-conditioned] apartment... having all those great slumber parties and going on daily Horkley's runs!!  Those were great times.  I love all my girls from 509 so much!!

Here's to Bethie [and Shandon] and an eternity of happiness and love!!

YAY!!  Mr. & Mrs. Brinkerhoff  :)

that time we did practically nothing for an entire month.

It's August.  That's cool. 

I'm not really sure what we did for the rest of July.  Probably just melting in the sun at the farmer's market and then getting home and complaining about it for the next four days.

John's been studying his cute little bum off, getting ready for the LSAT.  Which means that I've been watching a lot more Disney channel  :)  Life is good.

Hopefully we'll be a little more exciting this month...  we're planning a weekend trip to Boise at the end of the month.  There's a water park there  :)

a market for farmers.

This might actually be the only town I've ever known to have actual farmers at their Farmer's Market...

But so far my booth has been a great learning experience. It helps that everyone in this town is beyond friendly - even the people that you can just tell are thinking I'm crazy for charging $20 for a tote bag.

Last week was my first market, and it went ok. I got there early and had everything set up almost an hour before it started. I sat in the sun for four hours and sold one thing. When it was time to leave I had it all packed up and ready to go in about a minute. This week was better. For one, John was there with me the whole time. He was bored out of his mind, but I sure do love him for being there. Secondly, I didn't go so gosh darn early to set up and I had a better(ish) system for everything. The wind sure threw me through a loop tho!! Tell me, how do you display a penant banner of your shop's name when the wind is threatening to carry you off to Oz?? Not to mention everything being made solely of FABRIC!

Once the wind died down it turned out to be a really nice day. We sold two things (that's double from last week)! And had a nice time just being together and visiting with some friends. I'm much more excited about the rest of the summer now that today was a little better and I actually made a profit on some things!

I'm going to sleep now. It was a LONG day. (Don't worry, this will be re-edited tomorrow.)

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.0

do it yourself, las vegas.

this weekend i've been in las vegas!  i came down to meet Troy-boy, have a slumber party with my lovely friends Julia and Meagan, celebrate Steph & Nettie's birthdays, and spend some time with my momma.  it was the best.  [well, it IS the best, since i'm technically still here blogging from their computer.]

one of the things i wanted to do this weekend was to dye a pair of jeans.  i've been wanting to jump into the colored-jeans trend, but couldn't find a pair that was long enough or in a good color or a good fit, and we had a pair of not-so-favorite jeans that were just begging to be let out of the bottom drawer, so we figured why not??

that was a run-on sentence.  i apologize.

we started with a tutorial online... that i found on pinterest.  i read it, made sure to remember the tips and tricks and ratios of bleach to water and dye to desired saturation, and decided to give it a go.  we started with the jeans in a bucket with water and bleach. 

here they are a couple hours later, and then after sitting over night.

we washed the jeans with a load of whites [might as well put the excess bleach to use, right?] and then mixed up the dye with hot water and salt, according to the package directions.

we used two bottles of sunshine orange liquid dye,wanting to get a really nice saturated orange.  the last picture up there is just after dipping the jeans in for a second.  so fun, right?

my original idea was to dye them purple, but friday morning we went shopping and i found a pair of magenta/purple boyfriend jeans that were long [!!!!] and a really fun color and fit perfectly.  on sale.  plus an extra 30% off.  score!  so we had to think of a new color and then change our minds when we got to walmart and they hardly had any of the same colors as online.

we dunked the jeans in the dye, making sure that all the air bubbles were smooshed out and then left them to sit until they soaked up as much wonderful bright orangey-ness as possible.

these shots are after about 20 minutes, an hour and a half, and six hours.  [we left the house to do some more shopping!!]

they look so great, don't they?!  we were pretty dang excited and happy with ourselves at this point.  so we walked over to the end of the driveway, poured out all the dye, and rinsed the jeans a couple times with plain water to get all the excess off before tossing them in the washer.

and that's when we realized our mistake.  see, we are very low-maintenance diy-er's.  we didn't think that the bleaching process needed to be carefully monitored.  bad move.  once the bleach was finished sucking out all the color, it continued to suck the very life out of these jeans!  the first thing we noticed was all the buttons that tore out of the fly.  but we thought it was just from the metal rusting and eating through...

then i flipped the jeans over and kept wringing them out and...

uh oh.  that one's a little bit impossible to repair.  :(

upon further inspection we realized that the jeans were basically falling apart.  i kept wringing them out and each time i noticed more little tears all along the seams and worn-out areas.

so, in conclusion, i wouldn't necessarily call this a pinterest fail... but i would encourage anyone who wants to try dyeing their own jeans to pay very close attention.  the second those babies are bleached white take them out!!  i don't think leaving them in the dye for a long time damaged them at all... how else are you supposed to get nice, deep, saturated colors?  i blame the bleach.  100%.  oh, and also our couch-potato approach.

in other news, my mom had some caterpillars living on the basil plant in her kitchen!!  we think there were probably eggs on the leaves when she bought it and they just hatched and grew without anyone noticing.  [that's how often she uses fresh basil!  don't tell her i said that.]  there were four total.  just sitting there.  my brother and i decided that the plant needed to go.  [caterpillars are creepy.]  the whole thing.  plant, soil, pot, bugs.  and my jeans.  in the outside trash.  adios.

overall this has been a fantastic weekend.  i've had so much fun spending time with my friends who i never ever get to see, and having an entire conversation with my momma in person instead of divided up between four different phone calls, and shopping at a real mall.

but i do really miss my johnny monster.  i've decided that solo vacations are officially banned from here on out.  although, as excited as i am to see his face and give him a big smooch, i'm not so excited for the 6am departure time on my plane ticket.