Book Dreams:

I have hundreds upon hundreds of books I want to read. Wanna hear? OKAY! :)

1. Aurora Leigh Elizabeth Barrett Browning
2. David Copperfield Charles Dickens
3. Bleak House Charles Dickens
4. North and South Elizabeth Gaskell
5. Mary Barton Elizabeth Gaskell
6. Ruth Elizabeth Gaskell
7. Scenes of Clerical Life
8. Adam Bede George Elliot
9. Middlemarch George Elliot
10. Daniel Deronda George Elliot
11. The Moonstone Wilkie Collins 
12. The Woman in White Wilkie Collins 
13. Armadale Wilkie Collins 
14. The Professor Charlotte Bronte
15. Villette Charlotte Bronte
16. Agnes Grey Anne Bronte
17. She H Rider Haggard
18. King Solomon's Mines H Rider Haggard 
19. Vanity Fair William Thackeray
20. The Picture of Dorian Grey Oscar Wilde
21. Kim Rudyard Kipling
22. The Daisy Chain Charlotte Yonge
23. Pillars of the House Charlotte Yonge
24. The Story of an African Farm Olive Schreiner
25. All Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
26. Stalky & Co
27. Scarlett Pimpernell
28. Master and Margarita
29. Ender's Game
30. The Help
31. The Kite Runner
32. Sarah's Key
33. Possession
34. Anna Karenina
35. Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy
36. Sweetness of the Bottom of the Pie
37. Inheritance
38. Limitless
39. Eats, Shoots, and leaves
40. Pursuit of Happyness
41. The Mysterious Benedict Society Trenton Lee Stewart
42. Les Miserables Victor Hugo
43. The Count of Monte Cristo
44. The Night Circus Erin Morgenstern
45. London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets Peter Ackroyd
46. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Ransom Riggs
47. Speak
48. The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman
49. The Know-It All A.J. Jacobs
50. 50 Underwear Questions - A Bare All History
51. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
52. Alice in Wonderland
53. Alice Through the Looking Glass
54. Gone with the Wind
55. The Life of Pi
56. Princess Bride
57. Little Women

There are tons more that I want to read, of course, but this is a beginning :) I can't wait until I get to read for fun again!

Magical Mom Move

You know who when you were little and you lost something but could never find it?  You searched positively high and low. Under the couch. In your Barbie house.  Under the piles of clothes in your closet. In the junk drawer. EVERYWHERE!!! Then, in frustration you come to your mom and whine about how you can't find it. Two seconds later she magically finds the item on her first try, making you look foolish because you had in fact looked in that very same spot extensively. I always wondered how my mom did it.  It was magical and I was jealous of her super power.

But, guess what!

I DID IT!!!  I did the Magical Mom Move - only it was finding something for my husband and not a kid but it was still epic!

Mason dug through our "baking" cupboard for 5 minutes trying to find olive oil. He then exclaimed that he couldn't find it anywhere and that we must be out.  I sauntered over, looked in the cupboard, put my hand in, and pulled out our nice big bottle of olive oil.

It's the little things, you know? The seemingly insignificant things like the Magical Mom Move that makes your day legendary.

Overheard at Our Apartment

Me:  Oh, come here for a second (I wanted to show him something on Pinterest)
Mason: I can't. I'm farting.
Me: ...... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH

Sigh, I love husbands :)

To grow or not to grow?

That is NOT the question!  Well, kinda... I mean I like having short hair and all because it can be personalized a lot more than long hair (cut wise) but I miss being able to do messy buns, side braids, long and luscious curls. So, the answer to the question is to grow my hair out...but I'm sad at the same time.  Blahhhhhhhhh, why can't I have magical hair? I would just have to go to the mirror and say, "Hair, hair, on my head - style exactly like I said"  (that is just an idea, I haven't come up with a real chant/charm yet).

Here are 2 pictures of my hair in the last 4 months:

This is on our honeymoon - my hair is just barely past the "I want to shave this mess off right NOW!" stage

This is my current haircut.  It is an asymmetrical bob that is sassy and cute - just like me! 

One thing I like about short hair is that the actual cut isn't exactly like everyone else's.  With long hair, all hair cuts pretty much look the same (you can style it lots of ways, but when it is down and straightened [which my hair would be a lot] you look just like every other Sally or Sue on the street.... I don't like that feeling of blending in!)  If I had long hair I would love to do all of the fun sloppy buns, side braids, librarian buns, etc but I would want to change up my hair a lot.  I would want to get it colored every day just so I don't get bored with it...but that's expensive and we need food more than my crazy hair wishes fulfillment.

I have basically decided to grow out my hair but like I said, I'm still nervous...
Wish me luck!  I know once it gets an inch over my shoulders it will drive me bonkers and I will want nothing else but a buzz cut! But I must prevail!

*plus the hubby thinks long hair is sexier than short!  That is motivation for growing it out :)

Creative Craves

Lately I have bee craving creativity - craftiness, baking, cooking, and I include cleaning in a creative process (sometimes you have to come up with new ideas).... Actually, I think I just want to be working with my hands.

So, what do I do in these situations? Why stalk blogs, of course!  I have found so many things I want to do - so many things, so little money...and that whole school thing gets in the way too.  So far I have found some fantastic things like: I forgot to save the links to these things - I just copied the directions.  Sorry!
- a Chocolate Chip, Caramel, Pretzel cookie (can you say drool-icious?!)
- Jersey knit maxi skirt that is way easy
- White chocolate hot chocolate
- Styrofoam and felt owls (sounds cheesy but looks adorable)
- Cute tea towels that you stamp with cool quotes from books
- Baked mango (you sprinkle a mango half with lime juice and honey - doesn't that just fill your heart with joy?)

I am blogging about it because I can't do any of these things quite yet - I have about 3 lifetimes worth of reading I have to do.  So, now I can only dream (and drool in the case of the mangoes and the cookies)

A Beginning -

In furniture refinishing!!! Woohoo eh?  This is my very first refinishing project and I'm psyched.

As I said before, I've been stalking some DIY blogs for furniture and I've got the bug - I've gotta work my own magic!!!

So, because I can't work on my shelf yet (it is an hour and a half away at my brother's place) I decided to work on my headboard.  Tonight while the hubs was at the game, I said to myself, "Enough is enough!!! I am starting this thing!!!" So, I picked up my awesome orange purse (which can be seen in first picture) and went to Wally World to get some material.

I managed to sand this whole sucker in 2 hours and tomorrow I'm going to silver leaf it! I'm geeking out!!! I'm scared that I will royally screw it up, but I am also so excited to see how it turns out.  I think it will be cool because the headboard is kinda antique-y, or something, and silver leafing is modern so the combination is going to be delightful (I hope).

I'll keep you posted!

Oh, and here are some of the blogs I love:
http://betterafter.blogspot.com/
       I love this one because it shows a ton of before and afters, one after another, and I just drool!
http://vintagerevivals.blogspot.com/
       This girl is adorable! And I love stalking, I mean reading, her blog!
http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/
       I haven't perused this one fully yet, but it is where I am getting directions on silver leafing - I would never have thought of it until she did a post of a project.  For that I am eternally grateful!

Eventful Day!

Whoa, this is weird. TWO posts in TWO days - whaaaaaa?  Today was just fun, random and jazzy cool.
Last night, the hubs and I didn't go to bed until 4am because we had come home from school/work totally exhausted and slept from 3 - 6:45 pm.  Then we drank Diet Mountain Dew. Dumb.  So needless to say we slept in a bit this morning.

When we finally got motivated enough to get out of bed around 10am we brushed our teeth and headed up to Ogden to pick up my shelf!  My brother is letting us use his expansive, beautiful garage to store it in and to work on it in, because in an apartment you have absolutely NO places to do the work of destruction.  When we got the shelf in the garage we talked for about 45 minutes on the things we were going to do to it - basically, tear it to pieces and rebuild it using a few of the decorative pieces.  I'm stoked!  I am going to learn a TON and can't wait to get started!

On the drive home, we stopped at my great aunt-in-law's to pick up our tickets for tonight's game (HUGE disappointment...) While there, I saw this pile of trash furniture at an apartment complex next to the aunt's house.  Guess what?! I snagged an ugly little chair that I'm going to make-over for our new office chair.  I was jazzed because I never thought I would find a pile of furniture for the taking.  Little did I know luck was on my side.

Two minutes later, we were driving down the road: the hubs questioning my sanity and me glowing with trash collector accomplishment.  I glanced out the window, and what did I see?  An AWESOME headboard just leaning against the wall of an apartment.  I squealed out and begged Mason to turn the car around so I could knock on the apartment's door.  He thought I was crazy, but sweetly turned the car around.  I practically bolted to the apartment and knocked; a cute girl answered the door and I blurted out, "I know this is weird, but is that headboard yours?" Then the most beautiful words left her mouth: "Yes, but we're trying to get rid of it!" Whaaaaa?  I snatched it up .... and then spent a good half hour trying to squish it into the car.  (It didn't fit, so I exclaimed, "Mason! I need a minivan!" He calmly replied, "totally, if you keep picking up trash!" Luckily, we have a friend with a truck so we won't have to splurge on a minivan quite yet)

I scored TWO (kinda three if you count picking up my shelf) trashed beauties that will make our home so cute and homey in a matter of hours!  It was incredible and I am still elated at my luck.  Poor Mason.  He's stuck with a "trash" collecting fanatic :)

(I don't have any pictures of my finds yet, but I will upload some as soon as I get them)