garth freakin' brooks . . .

So before this weekend, I just kinda like Garth Brooks. He was a little too country for me.  But after this weekend, I'm in love!!  Seriously, I have never seen anything like it.  The hubby's friend took us and his brother and his wife to Vegas for the weekend for their birthdays to see him. (THANKS JIMMY!!! Ü ) I had goosebumps the ENTIRE show.  This guy is hilarious, brilliant, incredible, sexy...pretty much the most awesome person ever! (I still love you husband!) We were on the 4th row, like 20 feet away from him!  I have never experienced something so cool.  Trisha Yearwood came out for a few songs and I was blown away by her too!  She has an AMAZING voice.  Who are these people?!  I would give anything to be able to sing like that! 

Us with Garth's Guitar!!!!!

(don't mind how I look 6 and a half months pregnant or how we all look possessed in this shot, it was a harmless trip to Vegas, I swear.)

So the show was awesome.  It was just him and his guitar playing accoustic the whole time.  Which is really the best way to play music, methinks.  I didn't take that first picture because they told us if we even pulled out a cell phone we'd get kicked out, but he wore pretty much that same thing. A blue hoodie, jeans that looked like they just got pulled out of a suitcase and a baseball hat. Apparently I'm attracted to pint-size, chubby guys that sing and don't give a crap what anyone thinks. (not really, it just works for him.)  He told the story of how he got started and who influenced him and played a bunch of old songs from like Simon and Garfunkel and Billy Joel.  It was seriously just plain amazing and we will definitely be going back while he's still down there! 

I LOVE YOU GARTH!!! Ü

worst campaign ever . . .

Seriously Victoria's Secret?  This is your brilliant advertising?

Okay, good for them that they are attempting to get a "Love Your Body" image out there, but seriously, I'd love my body too if I were these chicks.  Dove's campaigns were lame, but they look like genius' compared to VS now.  How are these 7 body types anything like the real world?!  Instead of slim, athletic, a little out of shape, curvy, va-va-voom curvy, more to love, and a lot more to love there is incredibly thin, barely there, taking on the shape of a twig, slightly anorexic, haven't eaten real food for 20 years, ready to break in half and the wind just might blow me away.  These people are dumb-dumbs.

I was just telling my mom the other day, I think I'm really growing up! I am starting to feel comfortable in my own skin both emotionally and physically.  I've never really felt that before.  I am probably the most emotional person you have ever met, seriously, I cry when someone looks at me wrong, I get goosebumps when I watch So You Think You Can Dance, and I swear a piece of me actually dies when I see those save the dogs commericals.  I always saw it as a weakness, a flaw.  Lately though, I see a power in it, a power to love more deeply and accept more fully.  I'm okay with it, more than okay with it.  I would rather cry when I see two people that are completely in love than to not see the overwhelming beauty of it.  I would rather know I have a heart and be tempted to give every ounce of my money to Sarah McLaughlin and those poor dogs than to feel nothing but indifference.  I am emotional and I wear my heart on my sleeve and I'm proud of it.

I'm out of shape.  I try to work out and feel the need to curl up in a ball and pass out 5 minutes into it.  My body is no where close to perfect, or where I would ideally like to be.  But for the first time I can ever remember, even when I was in the best shape ever my senior year, I look at myself in the mirror(most days) and instead of wanting to go hide under the covers and hibernate all my fat off, I can say, I'm not THAT bad!  Maybe it has a lot to do with the fact that I see potential in myself now, that I focus more on what CAN be, than what IS. So for now, I embrace this new found self-confidence and keep trying to be healthier with the hopes that this confidence will grow as I continue to grow.

But my chubby girl side of me still cries a little when that stinkin' VS catalog shows up in my mailbox.

 (Which seems like every day! Seriously, save some trees VS!)

experimenting . . .

So... I need your help!  Ü  I started an etsy shop and I want to see how things go!  I'm just starting out with a couple things I have made and gotten a good response and we'll see how it goes!  Here's what I've been working on...

What do you guys think?! I need honest opinions here! And please let your friends or anyone that's having a baby know about me and my new shop!! I will do anything custom!

Anyway, check out beautifulweirdos.etsy.com and let me know! 

I'm really excited about this and hope it works out!

Thanks guys!!

deliciousness . . .

Seriously the best part about St. Patrick's Day...

(image from DodogoeSLR's flickr)

Thanks Mom and Dad! Ü

So on a different, but equally fascinating note... Ü when I googled Lucky Charms, this was one of the results...

Now I'm sure it doesn't actually smell like the cereal, but let me pretend for a

minute that it does, because are you kidding me?!

It says it's a blend of rose, peony, apple, peach, iris, mandarin, and vanilla.

So basically heaven then?

Delish.

all the notes . . .

Dear John Mayer...

You are an idiot and you should really think before you talk.  However, I still love you and think you are a brilliant artist. I even still think you're a good person, but I think it's for the best that you and Jessica Simpson are over. I think she gave you a case of the crazies.

Dear Accounting Guys at work...

I like you guys, really I do.  But if you continue to feel the need to bring me a  stack of invoices to enter, fax and mail 10 minutes before I need to leave to mail them, then I'm going to feel the need to karate-chop you in your neck.  I'm just saying.

Dear UVU...

I have always been in at least the honors bracket when I receive grades.  So you can imagine my dismay when I got my Associate's Degree and I am off by .02 points to graduate with honors.  I know it's probably my fault, but I feel inclined to blame you.  Now I'm tempted to drive 45 minutes down and back everyday to finish my Bachelor's Degree with you just so I can prove you wrong.  It's on.

Dear "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette"...

Please stop being so entertaining.  I know you are totally scripted and not at all real, but I can't help but want to watch every episode of you.  Watching you is like eating cheesecake...so bad for me, but I just can't walk away.  Not to mention my husband thinks less of me everytime I watch you.  So if you could go away, I would appreciate it.

P.S. When I say go away, I really mean please stay and keep having nutjobs on to keep me entertained.

Dear Any Place That Makes Clothing...

What's with the shirts that you claim are dresses?  I have to actually get ready for work now, and I would prefer not to live in pants during summer. So if you could make some cute dresses and skirts that work for us that would prefer to cover 75% of our bodies instead of letting it hang out, that would be great.

Dear Swimming Suit...

You are my monster under the bed.  I won't be terrified of you one of these days.

Dear Husband,

You deserve a gold medal. (Or bronze since you think it looks cooler.)

and she starts over...

I stress myself out. Over dumb stuff. Like this blog. I always find myself thinking about something and then the conversation with myself goes something like this, "Man, if I blogged, I would totally blog about this. Wait, I have a blog. That I haven't updated in almost a year. That blog sucks. I wrote about dumb stuff, and it's connected to a stupid email address. Plus it has our real names, there are some creepy people out there. I should start a new blog. But what would I call it? I have nothing to write about. But I could write all kinds of witty things...if I was witty. I have a feeling people laugh at me for reasons other than they think I'm funny..." And that goes on for a while as I sit by myself for 8 hours a day at work. So today I finally convince myself I am going to start a new blog. I try to convince myself to just update the old blog, but I have this irrational need for everything to flow from beginning to end perfectly and the year gaps in writing just didn't work for me.

So I decide I'll keep the old blog because I like the address but I'll delete the old posts and change the email address it's connected to(because almost-25-year-old me judges 15-year-old me for such a lame email address). But apparently even though blogger is a google service, it doesn't like when people try to change their emails to a gmail address. So in the midst of my everything-needs-to-be-perfect "crisis", I end up deleting my entire google account which means my blog is still there but I have no way to log in to do anything about it... I love you Google, I really do, but if you take the time to make a page for me to request to have my account restored, maybe you could take the time to actually do it... Just a thought. Anyway, to make a long story, well, long, luckily my wonderful husband still has access to the blog so we can put a post up and cancel it at some point and here I am with a new blog that I think I'm happy with, along with 2 other accounts with blogs attached because I couldn't make up my mind. Rational-me is still trying to tell neurotic-me that soon the old half-way disappeared blog will be gone and everyone that reads my blog (so... me) will find me again!

If you made it this far... I love you too. Because I know it's only out of love that someone would, or could, read all that insanity! And here's some cuteness as a reward... Ü

I really love her.