1 more sleep...

Once Upon a Time on ABC is MY SHOW and I've waited forever for the next half of the season and now there's only...

One.

More.

Sleep.

Rumplestilskin better come back or I quit watching. But he will.

Wicked is coming.

I'm a nerdface.

I haz the busy

Boy am I hoping the weather guys are right about the snow for this next week! I need a couple of days to stay home and catch up on all this homework or my head could very well explode. Saturdays make me happy because I can (kinda) sleep in and then get everything from the past week all sorted out! I don't like to do this on Sundays so well because Ethan doesn't work and we like to spend time together :) I am so happy for him though…he just has 2 classes (that he loves), and a job (that he loves), and a list of jobs (that he would love even more) to apply for closer to graduation! Yay yay. Anyway, so far today I have completed almost all of my US Lit homework and plan to have both of Monday's tests all studied for and a rhetoric paper started. It is a little frustrating that my gen ed classes are taking up so much time when I have giant design classes and work to do also. Can you tell this post is just a giant brain dump? :P When Ethan gets home tonight we will make a grocery run to stock up on snow food…however once it actually snows we will probably walk to walmart again anyway for no reason. We do that every time, I think its just because we like the snow and it's fun to take a walk and not drive. Hmm maybe we should walk tonight even though it's not snowing…wait how would we carry groceries back without wishing we had the car? I know! I need this bike. 

This need is nothing new though. Look, I could put things on the back AND the in basket! And it is a cruiser but has handle brakes! Besides, look how yellow it is :)

Ok, so this post was pointless, but putting some stuff out makes me feel like I have more of a handle on life, hahaha…who am I kidding :P We'll see how it goes. 

My semi-organized life

Work and school are BACK…full steam ahead! Usually I am pretty good about keeping due dates and assignments straight in my head, but I am taking one more class than usual and I guess it put my brain on overload…I couldn't keep track of ANYTHING for the first couple of days. So I went to the school bookstore to look for a little calendar planner. They were all ugly. Target to the rescue…I found my new lifesaver/favorite toy!

 There were cheaper ones, but if I'm gonna have this for a whole year I might as well have the most beautiful one I can find.

Look how leetle and cyuuuuute!

And it has little tabs!! There were also some adorable ones that were big, but that just seemed like way too much organization…talk about intimidating. Baby steps people.

Here's a little tidbit from INSIDE my calendar…ZUMBA class at school tonight! So excited. I go with a couple of girlfriends and it's so much more fun to go to the gym with buddies, I get so bored alone. BUT it's double fun when you're Zumba-ing (or as June calls it, "dancing manically until you die")!

 In other news, this Starbuck tumbler is my current favorite cup. You won't see me without it for awhile. The top is shiny, see :) 

"Kinda getting hungry, when's dinn--GOSH where is my cat, I LOVE HER!!!"

The title is a quote from today by my dear husband. Thought I'd throw that out there.
Tomorrow SCHOOL STARTS. Yikes. I don't know if I'm ready. It will be crazy, that I do know. I may not blog…I don't know that one. My hubby has not as many school hours as me, and he tells me he will take the brunt of the cooking and even made me teach him how to do the laundry! What a love, right?
I will now catch you up on my crafting of this past week you don't already know about. A few days ago I completely threw away most of organized my craft closet and found some fabulous red and gold tulle pompoms that some friends had made for my bachelorette party like a year and a half ago. It seemed a horrible waste to throw them out, but I told myself I was being a hoarder and sadly put them in a trash bag. I finished the closet job (yay!) but was still trying to think of a way to use my pompoms before I actually took the trash out (hey now. I'm a creative AND a junkster, trash disposal is not usually high on my to-do list :P). THEN found a wire wreath frame I'd bought a while back! Whoohoo! The hubs helped me pull them all apart and I just tied it to the frame. I tied a previously bought and painted hobby lobby letter in the middle and I LOVE the results!!

I also wrapped some dollar store valentine wire around the whole thing, to add to the valentine-ness.

Next up, I've always liked those recycled magazine photo frames, but would never actually BUY one…ahem folks, recycle your own! :) I had a wide frame that was junky and kind of broken, but hey what a perfect opportunity!! Turns out rolled up and mod podged magazine scraps cover a multitude of sins.

I threw an old photo in as a placeholder, but a new frame calls for a new photo!

What do y'all think about this one?

Aaaaaawwwwwwwe! :)

Super Scrub

So I wanted some party favors…yes, more baby shower stuff haha. So I decided to make my grandma's famous hand scrub! I've tried a lot of homemade hand scrubs off interest and such, but never really found one I loved. But then grandma made some of this stuff and it makes your hands feel super soft like a baby's butt…and NOT oily like the ones I had tried. Grandma told me how to make it, but I never made the stuff--until today.

What you need:

~Epsom Salts

~Scented Epsom Salts (now these are in a different place than the other ones. I got Spearmint Eucalyptus by the shower gel in Walmart)

~Oil (Olive oil doesn't tend to work as well)

~Body Wash (pick whatever color you want your scrub to be, in a scent that won't smell horrible with the smell of your epsom salts. It doesn't matter a whole lot cuz you'll barely smell your body wash. But still.)

~A couple drops essential oil of your choice (optional)

Put in your epsom salt and scented salt in a ratio of 2:1 or so. Just eyeball it to however much you think you want to make.

Pour in a "sploop" of your vegetable oil. Start with a small amount.

Followed by a roughly equal sploop of body wash.

Yay.

Mix it all up! If you started small like a good little person your mixture should be crumbly. We don't want crumbly, so add more tiny sploops of the oil and body wash until your mixture is super fluffy. If it's too wet add a little more salts, but fluffily cloudlike is what we're going for. Like fairy poop.

Put in in the container of your choice, but leave a little space at the top as shown. The stuff likes to expand at times. 

Decorate however you wish! These make awesome little gifts huh? They make good medium-sized gifts too, allz you need is a bigger jar! :) So go make some and let me know how you like Grandma's favorite hand scrub!

Diaper Motorcycle!

My sweet friend LaTasha is expecting a (no doubt) ADORABLE baby boy soon! That means baby shower time of course!!! I love baby showers…all the cute little clothes, the cupcakes, the chit-chat…and apparently popular belief is that baby shower games are dumb, but I like them too and I'm PROUD of it dangit! My new baby shower favorite is the diaper motorcycle, found on www.sweetaprils.com. I've made it on several occasions now and they all look different and SOOOO much fun. So this time I decided to post my version.

 Arrange diapers in this spiral form using a round 8" cake pan as a guide. Secure it with a rubberband. Make 2 of these to be the wheels!

 Cover up those rubberbands with thick ribbon of your choice. I used this fabulous stuff that LaTasha had leftover from another shower and used tape to stick it on. I love recycling don't you? :P

Now you have this. 

Roll a receiving blanket into a tube and put it through the "hole" in the middle of the front wheel... 

 …and through the back wheel. This holds your wheels together. Just stuff any unruly blanket ends into the hole if needed as shown.

Now roll up ANOTHER receiving blanket and stick it through the front hole again. 

Place a cute bib over each wheel. (Oops. I forgot this step and had to redo, which is why bibs don't show up in the next couple of pictures…)

Pull your blanket up over the top of the wheel and tie it with a pretty ribbon to make the handlebars! You can include a bottle between the wheel and the ribbon as the "light", but I didn't have one and my blanket wasn't big enough anyway.

 Throw some baby socks or mittens on the end of those handlebars. 

Annnnnnd you're done!!! See? Pretty easy!!

I will be getting a monkey to put on this bike, but for now my Lancelot bear is modeling.

Here's another one I've made.

And another.

Hope you enjoyed this here tutorial, now go make one for a baby shower and add your own embellishments! As for me, my hubby is fixing to make nachos, so I'm outta here.

Decemberween

December means winter break, CHRISTMAS, and in our case, travel!! Here's a rundown of our latest activities with pictures! Yay!

We had a FABULOUS Arkansas snowstorm :) Many were without power, but we are blessed with underground power lines and a good heater/fireplace. We had such a good time, we love the snow!

Giant icicle! 

 My Christmas manicure! For those of you who don't know, I sell Jamberry Nail wraps, so buy some :)

 We went to Branson for a couple of days to enjoy the Christmas fun at Silver Dollar City! We love doing this (even though it rained!!).

Ethan bought me a Scar tee shirt because he LOVED it. I do too :P

And I found these pink ombre jeans at Savers for el cheapo! Thrifty love. 

 CHRISTMAS!! My guy getting call of duty :)

Striped Christmas thigh-highs <3 

The day after Christmas we headed off to Kentucky for John Piper's CROSS Mission Conference! It was an amazing few days full of worship and great speakers. My favorite part was meeting other mission-minded college students from all over the world, it was so encouraging and a unique opportunity! We have lots of notes and took home a ton of great info.

 Look at our book haul! 

As far as January goes, I have the normal working-out, house-organizing, Bible-studying style goals that everybody else has. But I also want to be better with money this year! I've got some plans on how to save some money and be more responsible for 2014 (and in case y'all didn't know, some of those "freebie" things you sign up for aren't always free. Grrrr).

In another news, I'm cutting my hair short again soon.

This post absolutely does not mean I will start blogging again.

Wow, look I haven't blogged since I was engaged! Annnnd nothing on blogger has changed except it took a really long time to convince them that no, I really DON'T want a Google+ account. Please and thank you.

I've been randomly thinking lately about posting again. I work on my DIYs and go, "hey, wouldn't it be cool if I, I don't know…uploaded these photos to a blog? Haha, yeah". But oh the time!!! 

I spend a lot of time doing THINGS (not just Pinterest y'all) but most of my time gets divided into short chunks of doing different things as opposed to sitting down and doing one thing.

Maybe that's why I stink at jigsaw puzzles and card games.

But blogging! Oh, that is a terrible short-chunk-of-time-activity for me (maybe I can start getting good at doing it on my phone between classes). But I had been mulling it over halfheartedly, then of course Kacy Lou says to blog…how can I refuse, she's in CA!!!! 

So we'll see.

The Darcy Disposition (or ode to the serious male types)

Ok ladies, I've got a bone to pick with yall.

You all know this guy.

Ah yes, the fabulous Mr. Darcy. And for those of you who (bizarrely) have problems with that one...

There. Now you can relax. 

Anyway moving on. Mr. Darcy. You know him, and most likely you have some manner of affection for him. If you don't, stop reading this and go golfing or play some pool and watch with the boys, because you most likely are not female.

I'm kidding.

My point is, girls like this guy in general. I explain that because I'm nice that way.

But Darcy is not the only hero who is like, well...HIM. There are actually many others of his disposition.

 Mhm, that's right. The dude from the lucky one. Coolness.

I hate to add this one, but I'm in the process of making a point.

 Yeah, him too. Edward Cullen from Twilight. There, THAT kept you from being blinded by sheer awesomeness in this post.

You're welcome.

There are many more guys like this in movies, but it's late and my mind's blanking out on it, so I'll just move on again while you think of them for yourself.

What traits do these guys have in common?

• Quiet
• Heroic
• They're the good guys
• You don't usually use the word "extremes" in the same week as you say their name
• Serious
• Reserved
• Chivalrous
• Don't care to say much
• (with the exception of Edward) happen to have quite dashing good looks
• women watching their movies LOVE them.

The quiet ones.

The introverts.

The steadies.

The mysterious heroes.

Let's focus on that last point up there. It is a fact universally acknowledged that most females watching these movies will fall in love with these characters. The Edward Cullen tee shirt is everywhere and his hype is just about to start up again. The Lucky One goes without saying. Mr. Darcy is a common household name and all the girls say stuff like "I would so be perfect with Mr. Darcy, I wish there were still guys like him". 

Here's the shocker...THERE ARE.

Shocker number 2: If Mr. Darcy or any of these guys leaped out of the screen in a tee shirt and jeans and showed up at your school, you would have nothing to do with him.

It's true. For most girls.

He would never be popular.

He'd never be "cool"

You would call him "weird", or even better--that horrible, shallow, meaningless word that is so popular to use when you feel uncomfortable for stupid reasons: "awkward".

Off screen, you wouldn't recognize him at all.

I say these things because I've seen it firsthand. I know several guys like this. You see, I even have one.

The guy like Darcy does not care to smile. He does not care to speak all the time. There is a common misconception that, though these quiet types are mostly silent, when they DO speak it is something profound. This is not really true either. Think about it: Mr. Darcy was NOTORIOUS for saying the wrong thing. The Zac Effron guy waited around forever when he couldn't think about how to tell that girl about how he found the picture and all. They come across as socially awkward, shy, even rude. Some guys may be that way, but not these that I'm talking about. They're just not good at talking. That' all there is to it. 

Another misconception is that a steady doesn't have a temper. Not very true either. I mean, did you SEE Mr. Darcy go off on Lizzie that first time he tried to propose? A quiet guy can get mad, and may even holler and raise cain.

But you know what they do?

They listen.

Even when you think they're not, they're listening. And then they think, they process and they retain. 

They do the right thing. That is a common trait they all share. They might not all be rocket scientists who invent the best way to do everything, but that quiet thought goes to something. They are workhorses to get things done and do what needs doing. They're not afraid to get their hands dirty over it. And what they do is RIGHT. They APOLOGIZE when it's not their fault. They want to forgive and forget. Everybody's selfish, but these guys are less so than most people.
 What else do they do? They try for YOU. Yes you, who feel uncomfortable at their presence because they are so serious, and don't have a busload of friends around them at all times. They work on their countenances to be more approachable, since it is friendly to look friendly. They are not perpetually in a bad mood, but being the laughy-jokey happy-go-lucky life of the party is work for them.

And you know what?

I get impatient too sometimes when I would rather talk about something or act without thinking like I should. But I'm learning. I like to think I'm learning pretty well...I have a good teacher. These guys will teach you a lot. I won't make excuses for how you see them, because you don't know them.

So ladies, I do not care if you like these movie guys...but if you do, you had BETTER like them in real life. If it's just because they're hot, there are plenty other hot movie guys. Go like them. But don't say the quiet guys are awesome unless you're willing to chill with the name calling and actually appreciate them.

Cuz I do.