School's Out

Well school is out for the day, and I am not going back until Wednesday. I have only ever taken one sick day in my two plus years of teaching and after suffering through today with my cough and my sneezes and no voice to yell at kids, I have decided to take another one! Unfortunately I'll still have to buy groceries for our foods lab on Wednesday, so I can't JUST relax, but better than trying to get my students to be quiet enough to hear my raspy voice.

So tonight we are making chili for a ward dinner. I'll probably let Adam do most of the actual cooking, since I'm not looking to start a cold epidemic here. We plan to start at 5:30. And I'm bored. And I thinking, life has to be pretty busy if you find your self with 15 spare minutes and you get bored. I'm so used to having my time allocated for different things, I don't know what to do with myself when I have free time. So I blogged. :)

Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu

I suffer from allergies all summer long. So when I woke up with a sore throat the other day I wrote it off as allergy irritation, but yesterday it became more and more clear: This is not just allergies, its a cold. When the only thing that sounded good for dinner was soup and I refused to watch a movie at Adam's house I knew it must be something I caught.

So before we left his house, Adam presented me with a large selection of medications. I chose a sudafed cold pill, took it with some water, and we left to watch a movie at my house. When we arrived I got ready for bed very quickly because I knew once that stuff kicked in there would be no washing my face or brushing my teeth. After the movie Adam let himself out and I remained unconscious for the remainder of the night.

This morning I knew we had to meet with the Bishop, being engaged and all that, and we'd already rescheduled so many times so I managed to pull myself out of bed and get ready for church. Things we a little foggy, as cold medicine affects me maybe more than most. It was driving to church when I realized I probably shouldn't be allowed to operate large machinery right now. But the drive to church is only like 2 miles so managed to arrive alive. Adam sweetly sat by my side as we talked with the bishop and I nodded every so often to look as if I understood. Seriously, not much was making sense to me. I hope it does later.

I sat through sacrament meeting, because it takes a lot for me to miss church, but I knew I needed to go home and sleep off the rest of this medicine when it was over. So here I am in my comfy bed, blogging about it. Adam will pick me up in an hour and he'll take me to his house and make me dinner. His parents are gone to Vegas or else I would for sure stay home. No sense in exposing others to this joyful experience!

Hope all of you are feeling well this fine Sunday! As for me, I think I have the Holy Hallelujah Cold.

Time in a Bottle

I arrived at work at 7am. Since then I taught Interior Design I, my new foods class ProStart, had lunch, prepared for next weeks classes and I am now half way through Interior Design II. The perplexing thing is that since I arrived at work only 10 minutes have passed! This is going to be a very long 8 hour work day. Or else I just need to replace the batteries in my clock. Boy oh boy, I hope its the batteries!

Kodachrome

When my mom, Kellie and Hannah came up last week we had fun trying on beautiful dresses. In all the pictures Kellie posed so cute. I, on the other hand, do not have her gift of posing and being photogenic. Here are some shots of the wedding dresses I did NOT buy (not that Adam reads my blog, but I have to be very protective of the pictures of my real dress!) Needless to say, Shillawna, you have your work cut out for you!! :) On a side note: I had no idea there were this many beautiful modest wedding dresses!! Way to go dress designers!!


Okay, so this one would have needed sleeves added, but its beautiful. I was having a hard time figuring out what to do with my hands. . .




Apparently at my wedding I might need to direct a choir. Here I am practicing I think.




I LOVED this dress. I think it would be my dress except it cost 3 times more than I wanted to pay. Sad day.




Oh my gosh, what is with this smile. Its more scary than it is friendly.




I think the best way to show off a wedding dress is with your hands on your hips. At least, I did before I saw all these pictures!




This is one of my other favorite poses, though not quite as popular as hands on hips.




I will not be wearing a veil on my wedding day, but they stuck one on me anyway. Its just sitting there on top of my head, its not connected to anything. I'd like to think this is why I'm making that face.




Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep. . .




Hands on hips.




Half smile. Awful really.




And the final hands on hips pose (that I posted. There are lots more)




This looks like a confused person.

Band of Gold

We recently had the chance to go up to Idaho and see our great friends Tiffanie and James get married in the Idaho Falls Temple. I guess we just waited outside, but it was still really awesome to get to share this day with them. This may be strange, but for me it was a day filled with many different smells, so I will document the day with all the different scents we experienced.

1. The shower in the Pinecrest Inn smelled very strongly of sulfur. I almost couldn't finish shaving my legs, but I held my breath and made it through!

2. Next for us was a stop to Reed's Dairy for some famous chocolate milk (made with potato flakes!) The smell there was the farm-ish smell of cows. Would this day be full of insulting smells??

3. Armed with our milk and some cheap doughnuts we headed to the temple to wait out side to see the beautiful bride and groom. As Adam walked in front of me I could smell his wonderful cologne. MMMMmmmmmm.

4. Soon it was off to Blackfoot to finish setting up for the luncheon. We walked into the Stake Center and I realized it doesn't matter where you are, an LDS Stake Center is always going to smell like an LDS Stake Center. Why is that?

5. In between the luncheon and reception we had 3 hours to kill. One of the activities we decided to do was bowling at the alley right next to the church. Just like the Stake Center, the bowling alley had the same smell you get in almost all bowling alleys! We had a fun time and I was totally oblivious to the truckers checking me out. Adam wasn't. :)

6. After staying at the reception for almost an hour we were headed back home. The last distinguishable smell of the evening was the smell of cut grass as we drove through farm after farm making our way back to Utah and Salt Lake.

Thanks to Tiffanie and James and their family for a wonderful day and so many great ideas for my own wedding!

I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight

Probably you all wonder what I've been doing this past couple of months. . . Who am I kidding? Probably not! But here it is anyway:

1. Zion's Canyon with the Thomas family for four days. This included some walks, hikes and a 20 mile bike ride that kicked my trash.

2. A couple days of rest which I should have used to pack my apartment.

3. A three day conference at BYU where I learned the latest about Fashion and Interior Design requirements in the state of Utah and took a full day cooking course from Chef John Johnson (who said I had amazing eyes but criticized my choice in footwear)

4. Left straight from that conference (picked Adam up in a Wal Mart parking lot first) and drove all the way to Palm Desert. Arrived at about 2am California time. We had a great time in Palm Desert with my family. We hiked, we went to the temple, we went to a water park and of course we golfed!

5. Leaving Palm Desert we drove to my home town of Lancaster. We went bowling on Saturday, church on Sunday and Six Flags Magic Mountain on Monday. We drove back to Salt Lake with Kellie on Tuesday.

6. Adam and I drove to Rexburg and back in one day to take Kellie back to her apartment.

7. I moved in four days from my apartment to my friend Jacquelynn's basement.

8. I picked out my ring! Its so awesome.

And that about brings us up to date on my summer so far. Why do I feel like its going WAY TO FAST???

Could it be I'm Falling in Love

I am falling in love!!! With my basil plants! :) For my birthday my friend Sam bought me 4 new potted herbs. Two types of basil, oregano and chives. So I trimmed my plants yesterday because I hear this helps them grow. Really I'm just happy I haven't killed them! So I had some chives (which are growing beautifully since I trimmed them a week ago) and my sweet basil and Thai basil that I needed to use or store. I froze my chives but wanted to use the basil. So I made a little pasta that was SO good. So here it is if you are feeling like some yummy basil goodness.

(Serves 2-3)

4 cloves garlic, chopped fine
Olive oil, enough to coat garlic in the pan but not so much you have oily pasta
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
Red pepper flakes, to taste (or leave out if you prefer)
Fresh basil, about 10 leaves
Fresh feta, to taste

So fry up chopped garlic in olive oil in a small or medium sauce pan. Add tomatoes, salt, pepper and pepper flakes. Let simmer for about 5 minutes. Toss on penne or your favorite pasta. Add chopped fresh basil and feta.

When I made this last night, I added quite a bit of the feta. I love it. But it kind of detracted from the flavor of the basil, so next time I would use less. If you don't like feta you can use parmesan.

Now that I think about it, why didn't I also add some of the fresh oregano??? :)

Kind of a Drag

I felt bad for just breaking down last night. I just felt I was to a point where I couldn't live like this any more. My house was a mess, my car was dirty, my bedroom was filled with dirty clothes, my classroom was trashed and I felt so sleep deprived. I felt like I was working all day long and never finding time to get my chores done (it doesn't help that I've had full Saturdays with no time to clean for the past three weeks now) With no clean serene area to escape to its easy to have an emotional break down. So today I just took some time to clean off my desk here at work. It was so cluttered it was almost imaginable. Just that small thing has made all the difference! Now I have a clean workspace, I can get my work done quickly, I can be back at home sooner and I can get started on my disaster of a living area. Life is really not that bad. :)

Hair

Sometimes I feel like its two steps forward, one step back with my hair. An awesome hair cut can grow out to be annoying and a sub-par hair cut can grow out to be awesome. Now I don't mean to imply that any of my wonderful hair dressers have ever given me a bad hair cut. From California to Las Vegas, from Draper to Sugar House, all of the well trained hair dressers I have entrusted with my tresses have done a wonderful job giving me what I wanted. But maybe what thought I wanted wasn't so great after all. Confused?

I just saw an old picture of me. I want my long hair back!!

Solitary Man

So about a month ago, probably around General Conference, we had quite a bit of rain. I noticed that some ducks from the pond at my apartment complex had taken to swimming in the puddle behind my car. Even after the rain stopped these two ducks were always near my apartment. One day I realized that they were in love. One was a beautiful male and one was a plain smaller female. (Side note: How glad I am to be human where the woman gets to be the pretty one!!) My theory is that they were so in love they just wanted to spend some time alone from the rest of the group. Every day we would see them and so Adam named them, Harry and Sue, two ducks in love. One day I was driving and I saw that a duck had been hit by a car and was on the side of the road. There are so many ducks that live in the pond by my apartment. I didn't even think that it could have been one of my ducks. The next day I saw Harry. Without Sue. Ever since I saw that duck on the side of the road Harry has been alone. So now I know it was Sue. Harry still hangs around my place and Adam and I say hi when we see him. Its just such a heart break to see him lose his true love.

This is not actually a picture of Harry, but it looks a lot like him.

Do You Want to Know a Secret

I am terrified of people in masks. Okay, so maybe its not that big of a secret! Yesterday we were at the Bee's Baseball game (a AAA Minor league team in case you were wondering) in the IKEA Suite. It was AWESOME. So we're sitting safe in our warm box watching the game and Adam points down to the mascot and asks me if I'm afraid of him. Well, no, not from this distance. A glass of water and a soda later I have to go to the bathroom so I ask the two cheerleaders that have come into our box if they know where it is. They tell me and I leave. When I return, the cheerleaders have been joined by a camera man AND. . . Bumble, the Bee mascot! In a very tiny room!! I look in, the Bee has his back to me, Adam takes one look at my face and bursts in to laughter. I couldn't decide what to do. Turn and run? Eventually I have the courage to walk quickly but quietly to Adam and make me protect me from this tall scary masked person. I don't understand this fear! I know it doesn't make ANY SENSE. It doesn't matter. So I try to be quiet as I say "Just hug me," to Adam. I know that if I make any noise it will turn its attention to me and that is the LAST thing I want. Adam says, "Look Kim, see, its just a man." And then Bumble hugs us. I'm still clinging to Adam for dear life. The Bee walks away, I let go. A few second later it gives me a paper that says: "Don't bee scared, I only sting on Thursdays. Bumble" The camera man films the IKEA room and it goes on the big screen. The cheerleaders and Bumble show off the beautiful IKEA kitchen in the suite and then they are gone. Later Adam points out Bumble back down on the field. "Are you afraid?" Well, no, not from this distance.

In the Summertime

I have spring fever WAY bad. I want school to be out! Just 7 more weeks. . . So I was thinking of all the fun things I'm going (or want) to do this summer:

1. Family Reunion in Palm Desert
2. Summer Conference at BYU (not so much fun, but I'm excited its at BYU!!)
3. Kenny Chesney concert July 23
4. Camping
5. ProStart Training for a week in August!
6. Living with Tiffanie!!! Finally I'll get to see her more than once a week for 5 minutes!
7. Swimming! So much my hair turns green!
8. Getting tan (with the help of the sun and my sunless tanner)
9. Growing my herb garden! Last year was a failure, but I have high hopes for this year!!
10. Eating salad! I love salad, but especially in the summer. Even better when you get produce from a farmer's market!!!

Oh man! I'm so excited!!

Sugar, Sugar

What you are about to hear is a true story. Last night after we had eaten dinner and dessert, Adam and I were watching the CMA's and he got up and went into the kitchen. He started rummaging around in the cupboards, so I asked him if he was still hungry. "I'm just craving some licorice." "Licorice?" "Yeah." "Oh," I said, "here, I have some in my purse." Yep, I had a whole pack of licorice in my purse and he had no idea. I have expected him to wish for a million dollars next. "A million dollars? Oh, here, I have that in my purse." :)

Rock On

Just a few things I think are awesome lately: (in no particular order)

1. John Krasinski’s voice on Verizon commercials.

2. Adam’s crazy weird performance on American Idol. (I may be the only person who liked it. . . but obviously there were other people voting for him!)

3. Warm weather! (er, warmer)

4. Shakes made with hot cocoa mix.

5. Sleep. I don’t think I’ve fully adjusted to the time change yet!

6. 30% off my favorite makeup (perscriptivesonline.com) and FREE shipping! (sometimes it pays to read junk emails)

7. This clear plastic glitter ring I won at Boondocks on Friday.

8. Tissues. I’ve needed a lot as my allergies get worse. See #3.

9. Clean kitchens, even if it means I have to run the dishwasher every day!

10. Retro Interior Design books given to me from the school library.

Warmth of the Sun

I'm sitting in my classroom FREEZING because it's always cold in here. And in 20 minutes I can go to lunch (Subway! Yum!) and I'll get to be in my car. I just don't think there is a better feeling than sitting in a solar heated car, with still, hot air all around. Steering wheel almost too hot too touch, gear shifter definitely too hot to touch, but it feels so good after this freezing classroom for 5 hours straight. I can make it, I can make it. . . just 18 more minutes now.

Judy in Disguise

I decided that after having long hair for over two years now (long meaning past my shoulders) it was time for a change. So I made the plunge and got "celested" by my friend Celeste, who obviously cuts hair. We realized that there would probably be enough hair to donate when she cut it and there was just barely. I cut off 9" and Pantene Beautiful Lengths will accept anything over 8". So just a plug for them, you can donate your hair and not have to sacrifice so much!! Celeste did, in my opinion, an amazing job!! And I had so much fun chatting with her. Adam was looking for me in Sunday school and missed me because he was looking for my hair. Our friend Nettie had to point me out to him! Ha ha, its been so much fun!

Dance With Me

Close up. The only picture where I am looking at the camera.

So we were taking these pictures in the hallway and I could see myself in my roommate's bathroom mirror. So looking at the camera was difficult for me.

Oh he loves me!!!

So for Valentine's Adam and I went to the high school dance. Not by choice, this is one of my work responsibilities. But we had a good time with it. We got all dressed up and had a fun time chaperoning and dancing. Of course he took me out to dinner and a movie (Confessions of a Shopaholic, because its my favorite book!) the night before. So we kind of got to celebrate twice. So here we are, so cute and dressed up for the high school dance!

Everybody's Talking

Actually, everybody wasn't talking. They were totally quiet when I walked into the classroom this morning. I took the paper the instructor handed me and sat down by Nicole. She started asking me about registering for the test, which I forgot to do because my apartment was so messy and I had cleaned instead. This got us talking about what she and her husband had done the night before. . . when suddenly the instructor walked over and got upset with us for being off task. Apparently we were supposed to be reading this paper and looking for key points. Ew, rude. Except I do that to my students five times a day, everyday. So there you have it.

If I Fell

Today I fell when getting into the shower and seriously injured my pinky. I don't know if its broken or just jammed, but it HURTS and is very swollen and immobile. Then I sat down to go the bathroom and looked at my knees. On the left knee is a bruise and scrape from when a stack of chairs fell on me last Sunday. On my right knee is the scar from last year when I fell and sliced my right leg with my left stiletto heel. I'm now starting to feel the bruise on my right shin from the same shower incident and the mysterious slice on my index finger in finally almost healed. I'd like to say this is unusual, but is so usual.

Help!

So today I left school a little later than usual. Usually I leave at 3:00. School ends at 2:25 and by 3 the parking lots have cleared and I can just drive out. So when I left at 3:10 I didn't even think about the traffic. I cleared the fresh snow off my car and got in. When I got turned around, facing the exit, I noticed there was a very long line of cars waiting to get out. I guess the falling snow on the already icy pavement was causing this process to take longer than usual. It was about a 15 minute wait, but soon I was almost to the front of the line. There were only two cars in front of me and I started to realize that we weren't moving as fast as the line of cars next to us turning left. I saw the wheels of the truck at the front of the line spinning and spinning and a little blonde girl at the wheel. "Oh no," I thought. "She's stuck." The drive way out of our school parking lot is at an incline, which makes the slippery snow difficult to deal with. I thought to myself that I guess I would just have to wait until all the left turn cars were gone so I could go around her. Suddenly I saw two boys hop out of the car behind me and a girl jump out of the car in front of me and another student appeared out of somewhere I didn't even see. The blonde in the truck, who I now saw was my student Holly, got out of the truck and one of the boys jumped in. The rest of the kids, including Holly, got behind the truck and began to push. Soon the truck began to move and they turned out of the lot and pulled over to the side of the road to switch drivers. The kids gave me a thumbs up as I applauded them from inside my nice warm car. It wasn't five seconds later that I found myself stuck in the same hole as Holly! The kids hadn't gone too far and they kindly rallied again and pushed me out. I waved a thanks and drove off amidst cheers and applause from kids every where. I got a little emotional as I thought about the selflessness of these kids, so willing to get out in the snow in the cold (22 degrees!) and not even dressed for pushing cars out of snow banks (one boy was dressed in a 3-piece suit, a girl dressed in a red wool coat and nice boots) and the kindness and joy on their faces as they did what they thought any good Bingham High student would do: help.

The Beat Goes On

Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain.
And life keeps going.
School starts tomorrow and in two weeks we start a new semester.
And I have so much work I feel terribly overwhelmed.
But it doesn't matter much because time will continue and soon it will be my summer break.
And then soon summer will be over.
And school will start again.
And the beat goes on.