Last week

On Wednesday Nancy and I drove to Salt Lake to see Pioneer Woman!  She came to SLC as part of her book signing tour for her new cookbook.  And we love her.  Immensely.  Unfortunately, the tiny little bookstore was PACKED.  We were too late to be able to go in and get our books signed.  BUT she walked right by us (as I was fumbling for my camera).  She and her mother-in-law and sister-in-law (who we also read about and love) had to wait around the back while their agent got some keys, and Nancy and I tentatively stood near them.  There weren't any other people, and we obviously should have gone up to them and at least asked for a picture with PW.  BUT Nancy and I aren't the kind of people who do that!  I was kicking myself afterwards, but oh well.  It's just not our style.  It was so fun to see her in real life so up close.  This is the only picture I got:

At least you can tell it's her?

Afterwards, to make up for not getting our books signed, we stopped by the mall in Sandy to get some ice cream from our friend Julie Blodgett's new ice cream place in the mall.  It was freakishly good!  It was the first time I've had Blue Bell ice cream--and oh man.

It's right by a giant Forever 21, so it's pretty much heaven.  I would definitely recommend Boardwalk Ice Cream to anyone driving through Sandy.

On November 5th, Celia and Ashley and I took Guy Fawkes day to heart.  In keeping with our old tradition of burning things, the 3 of us wrote down things we wanted to do away with (mine included laziness, some old grudges, and spending too much money, among other things) (I liked how Celia burned sleep deprivation) and burned them.   It felt just like old times!

Our little effigies

There go all of my bad qualities, up in smoke.

You have to pose tough when you have ashes on your face.  We're all on the verge of laughing though.

Kyle finally saw Harry Potter 6 on Friday!  Can you believe he's gone so long without knowing what happens in the end?  I almost ruined it for him a million times, but I managed not to blow it.  I just don't know how you can be a human in America and not hear about it.  Before the movie we ate pizza muffins.  After the movie we got Blizzards from Dairy Queen with Katy and Ashley.  After DQ Alan came over we all ate apple pie that Katy made.  I think we were all a bit regretful when we went to sleep that night.

On Saturday, we spent a lot of time and money at Tai-Pan, which is an AMAZING place.  A wholesale home decor warehouse?  COUNT ME IN. Then we went to Ikea and got to buy things for our house.  It was, for some reason, even more fun than usual.  Every little new addition to our house is inexplicably SO EXCITING.  Like, we bought a new utensil drawer divider and it THRILLS me.  I LOVE our new juice pitcher.  New everyday plates and bowls?  OH MAN YES.  This is just getting ridiculous.

A week from today I'll be seeing JASON and the rest of the So You Think You Can Dance top ten!  I really hope Kayla and Kupono do the addiction dance that I'm obsessed with.

Sweet Eliza

This afternoon I got to hang out with this sweet thing:

Eliza is so cute!  She just relaxed, looked around, and took a little nap.  She's such an angel.  Katy and I loved watching her while Celia took a little break.

Best Online Shopping Ever

Man.  Today I finally spent a Crate and Barrel gift card that we've been hanging on to for a long time.  I really can't remember a time I've been more satisfied by online shopping--and I LOVE online shopping.  Crate and Barrel just KILLS me.  Everything is so pretty and functional and cool to have.  Anyways, I was amazed at how much I could get with the card.  I thought everything there was freakishly expensive, but it turns out that just MOST of the stuff there is freakishly expensive.

We're going to have a lot coming to us in the next couple weeks:

Butter dish.  We need this.

Large and small gravy boats.  It's my first Thanksgiving at my house this year--we NEED gravy boats.

Pizza wheel--pretty standard.

We've been dying for a stainless steel bread box to go on our counter and match our stainless steel appliances.  I'm SO excited for this.

We really need new salt and pepper shakers, and these were so cute.  They're INKWELLS.  Come on.

A spoon rest!  I think these are the best!

A shaker. I plan on using this for putting cinnamon-sugar on my toast.

A cute little sauce dish.

Condiment spoon to go with the sauce dish.

Sifter spoon for putting powdered sugar on french toast, cookies, cake...

SIX of these adorable footed dessert dishes!  SO COOL.  I can't wait to throw a dessert party.  Maybe I'll make chocolate sauce and put it in the small gravy boat. Eating ice cream out of these will feel so fancy.

Anyways.  This probably isn't the most exciting blog post for everyone, but it sure thrills me.  I can't wait to start getting things in the mail!  We only spent forty-five cents on all of this.  FORTY-FIVE CENTS. Even the SHIPPING was free!

Wonder of wonders

Other than Halloween, Saturday was awesome for another reason.  We had an Ikea miracle.

There's this big (huge, actually) cabinet that we'd been wanting for our guest bathroom.  We picked it out at Ikea over a month ago, and we had just been waiting to use a vehicle large enough to pick it up.  Things fell through, cars broke down--we just were NOT meant to get this thing!  And then, Amanda generously offered to transport it for us when she came down last Saturday.  Kyle and I went to Ikea to purchase the beast early, so that by the time Jack and Amanda made it to Ikea we would have it ready to load.  We figured out the aisle and bin numbers that we needed to pick up the parts, and headed to the bottom floor to locate our boxes.

And then they didn't have it.  The bin which was supposed to hold the frame of the wardrobe was entirely empty.  We were DEVASTATED.  We had tried for so long to get it, and this was our ONE CHANCE.  I called Amanda and told her to forget it.  It was so sad.  Kyle went to check the As-Is section, even though it was ridiculous to hope that they had anything for us.  Amanda said that they were going to come anyways, because she and Jack wanted to look around at Ikea.

And then--MIRACLE OF MIRACLES.  There was a stack of the EXACT size/color/type of cabinet that we wanted, still in their boxes.  Not only that, they were 75% off!  Instead of this particular component being $100, it was $25.  That meant that it was bound to be DESTROYED and unusable.  We thought that maybe if we bought several, we would have a chance at having all the parts that we needed and still close to the same price.  We inspected the boxes.  It looked like a forklift had picked up the shipment wrong--there were huge gouges out of the sides of the boxes and pieces of wood.  Most were too far gone to use.  And then, after Jack helped move around the boxes because I'm too weak to be much help to Kyle, we got to the bottom box.  No holes or gouges.  Still $25.  They wouldn't let us open the box--As-Is is all about risk.  We decided to risk it.  Amanda and Jack drove the parts down to Springville.  We definitely owe them.

We inspected the frame yesterday.  PERFECT.  Not a scratch on it.  It was 75% cheaper than we thought, and it was in perfect condition.  Kyle and I feel like freaking out!  What were the odds that As-Is would have the exact thing we needed, for so cheap, for no reason?  OH MY GOSH.  This brought the total price down from somewhere around $350 to only $260 or so.  We're so excited.  I love when things like that happen.  I am feeling so Ikea patriotic right now.

Kyle built the cabinet and it is great.  It is GIGANTIC and capacious.  We now have all the storage we could possibly need.  And it's really pretty too!

FREAKING HALLOWEEN

Kyle and I had fun being Mulder and Scully.  We don't look anything like them, but it was really fun to pretend because I worship them.  I liked our badges in particular.  And my gold cross was key.  On Thursday, Celia dyed my hair red (super temporarily) and it's been fun to have a change.  I swore I would never dye my hair again after the black hair debacle of 2006, but this will only last a couple weeks.  It's not even really red--just fadey pink/brown.

Kyle wore his Superman costume to work on Friday--it was so fun for me because this time, I'm married to that hotness.  Seriously he looked so dreamy as Clark Kent.  It's ridiculous. I wish I had a picture.  I didn't think this was possible, but he looked even more attractive this year than he did as Clark Kent 3 years ago.

The party at the Bluffs home was so much fun!  Everyone's costumes looked GREAT.  When Alan (Maurice Moss) and Cannon (Colonel Sanders) walked in, I just about died.  We ate pizza and treats, "watched" the Garfield Halloween movie, and played Werewolves.  I thought I was over Werewolves, but OH MY GOSH.  We had the best Werewolves night I can remember.  I can't think of a time when I've laughed so much and so hard.  There was one point where I physically hurt from laughing so hard--Katy and I literally had to get on the floor to laugh it out.  It hurt.  Our friends (and my husband) are JUST SO FUNNY.  It was weird to feel so out of control!

Katy was a shark.

Edit:  She is not, I repeat, NOT a KKK member.

Amanda and Jack were super authentic doctors, and there's Cannon as the Colonel.

Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas with Mr. Rogers.

Alan's Moss costume was probably my favorite.  I LOVE Maurice Moss.

Emily's Wendy costume was freakishly cute.

Kasey was Dave Thomas--and he experienced a similar laughing meltdown.

Eliza was a really cute pumpkin.

I was, for some reason, really pleased with the vampire cupcakes I made.  They're filled with cherry pie filling, which is cool, but the fang marks on the frosting really perfected it for me.

Out of Character

I am pretty timid about my opinions--not in private, of course.  I am prone to ranting to poor Kyle and my family and best friends.  But out in the open--especially amongst people who disagree with me--I avoid debates.  They make me uncomfortable.  However, the other day I felt I had to stand up for the Church when a discussion was turning anti-Mormon.  I made a comment, just to clarify a blatant lie--which turned into answering some questions from a friend.  I ended up feeling quite strongly about something I had never thought a lot about because it was easier not to.  It was kind of exciting to research and pray and gain a testimony of a topic that I never felt strongly about.  The conversation closed with me bearing my testimony of the Gospel--and it felt really really good.  I never bear my testimony in church because I'm terrified of speaking to the congregation.  I'm never the first to bring up gospel topics with non-members.  I'm just too shy, I guess.  Anyways, it was exciting to me that I was brave enough to engage in this conversation.

And then, the conversation that I was so happy about ended up being turned into a negative blog post that was strongly anti-Mormon in tone.  My sincere words were used to illustrate my ignorance (and indeed the ignorance of all Mormons--sorry guys).  It hurt my feelings that my friend was so disingenuous.  Usually, this sort of thing would be DEVASTATING to me.  And while I was disappointed, I'm happy to say that I don't really care all that much.  Instead of being embarrassed and bitter, I feel...good.  I feel good about what I said, good about how it made me feel.  It doesn't matter that my words fell on deaf ears.  I'm grateful that my testimony was strengthened by bearing it and by learning new things about the Gospel.

I love the Gospel. I love the Prophet.  I love the temple.  I love knowing that everything is going to be okay, because the Lord loves me and my family and everyone.  I am so happy to remember that it's important to say these things--often and bravely.

*Update:  What do you do when you want to debate with someone but you're just not up to it?  You sic Russell Stevenson on him, THAT'S what you do.  And that's what I did.

Fact. I am happy.

Black Eyes:

• Umm...these are hard to come up with right now
• But I'll try anyways
• Sometimes my internet is slow
• Running makes me SO TIRED
• Cleanliness doesn't happen on it's own
• No good movies on AMC's Fear Fest lately
• SNOW
• 2 weeks until our new couch is delivered

Feathers in my Cap

• The new "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" Dove/Walmart commercial
• Wait Until Dark with Julia and Taylor
• Pomegranate 7Up for the holidays
• Going to a Pioneer Woman book signing in a week
• Bearing my testimony to a questioning friend
• My new house continues to thrill me
• Finding my Halloween costume at DI
• Kyle is my husband

My wooden spoon/spatula collection is a serious feather in my cap.  It's not ultra impressive or anything, it just pleases me.  I really need to expand it though.  And I know they are actually rubber scrapers, but, I like "spatula" better.