Sometimes we don't do holidays, sometimes all we can do is us....

And sometimes this is us.

It's not roses and heart-shaped sugar cookies or a fancy romantic night on the town.
It's hard, it's exhausting, it's humbling, it's a little bit scary.... but it's us.

And I love us—so it's alright with me.

♥

mail is better in a pink mini mailbox

I found these little treasures in the $1 section at Target. Obviously I had to buy one for each of us, I mean hello .... mini mailboxes for silly love notes?? I'm a little offended you even had to ask.

It's simple. Write the gushy/heart-felt love note, fold it up, shove it in the mini mail box and throw up the flag. Taaa-daa! It's V-Day up in heeeea!

To finish up this project, these little darlings were set on either side of the telly. That way we can check the mail while watching Idol.... because we might be just that lazy (or because we are super awesome multi-taskers).

♥

p.s. I sort of hate the term "V-Day" and I don't know why. I'll try not to use it again.

like a little Keebler elf

Last night I found a little sack of happiness on my doorstep.
No one was there to be found, so I'm assuming they must have scampered away like a little Keebler elf.

Well! Happy Monday, I mean Tuesday, to you too!!

They were delish!


p.s. anyone who can spot the the Christmas tree and snowman among the sprinkles gets a kiss.

p.p.s. has anyone heard of the Neighborhood Plate? because that little lady has been floating around our hood for the past little while. really forces you serve peeps by making them lots of sweet things to rot their bellies.... I've been experimenting with new recipes. best way to do it I say! totally anonymous.

Lately:

I have had a little problem with high levels of stress.

I guess you could say I needed to blow off some steam or something.

And this was the only idea in my head that made any sort of sense.

My Sharona—The Knack

p.s. worked like a charm.

Our WICKED Weekend

Our week was a doozy—very long and very busy. So when 6:30 Friday night hit we were both thinking a date night to Downtown Fullerton's ever delish Rutabegorz was in order. As we were circling in on our destination my phone rang.....

It was a super awesome lady from our ward who had just won 2 extra tickets from the Wicked Lottery for that night's 8:00 show!.... In LA.... At the Pantages Theater!

She asked if we wanted to take them.... we thought about it for about a millisecond and said "YESSSSSS!!!" (with some additional squealing from both me and Jason). 

We jumped on the I-5 and hurried our little butts to Hollywood....

Jas drove like a champ through the Friday night traffic into LA and we made it to the theater just in time. I was so proud.

Lisa (our newest bestest friend in the whole wide world) gave us our tickets, a pair of binoculars and spoiled us with a beautiful Wicked book, Sprites and M&Ms for the show.

The theater itself made my jaw drop and I had to remind myself to close my mouth. Art Deco at its very finest—sort of made us feel like we should have maybe worn a tux and floor-length gown (the gown would be for me of course).

I cried twice during the performance and got a little choked up once on the way home. Not in the "oh how sad" sort of way, but in the "Oh my gaaaash this is so amazing! I can't believe I'm here!!!!" sort of way.

Best spontaneous date night of my life.

 Bucketlist:

Fly to the moon.

Go to a Jack Johnson concert.

Take a million photos in Greece.

Go to a professional production of Wicked. CHECK!

See the pyramids.

*ok, so that's not my actual bucketlist. I never really want to fly to the moon, I hear the commute is terribly long—but last night (& my pal Caley) has inspired me to officially write up a hard copy.

Oh hey 2012! Let's try to get along, ok?

Wait. So you're saying Christmas is over? Like for reals?? What the ...... ?!??!

After a whirl-wind-family-filled Christmas vaca to Idaho and rushing back to CA to shoot a day-before-New-Year's-eve wedding in San Diego, Jas and I decided to kick it real casual on Dec 31st. We had ourselves a movie marathon in our coziest sweats and I wore my best Navajo sweatshirt (if you've been near me in the past few months I'm sure the two of you have met). It was perfect.

Jas fell asleep during our first feature and I pronounced his movie marathon abilities as royally sucktastic. 

He had better luck during the second movie (due in part to the giant metal bowl of buttery air-popped popcorn in his lap). And we finished off our bottle of Martinelli's as the ball dropped and danced to C Lo Green and Blake Shelton in front of our tv.

Yesterday was January 1, 2012. The day for writing new resolutions for the new year.

I started writing all sorts of fantastic and fresh resolves like such as: exercising and going to bed earlier and losing weight and plucking my eyebrows more regularly (oh, it's on there).

But then, before I knew it, I was painting sparkly confetti fingernails instead.

I have always had outstanding follow-through.

Jolly ol Mistletoe

Winter Wonderland—Jason Mraz (one of my very very merry Christmas faves)

Jas told me he wanted me to take these turtlenecks right back to where they came from. I told him I wanted to wear them to every Christmas party we go to this year. So he settled for a good, old fashioned, family Christmas photo instead.

They have posted boy scouts at the doors of almost every grocery store within a 10 mile radius to sell mistletoe and holiday cheer to all shoppers... I successfully avoided eye contact at all of my stops until I came out of Albies and saw the little guy with the freckles and the boy-scout shirt that was sort of too small. I have a problem with the word "no". Or even the combo "no thanks".

Oh well, at least that meant Jas got a little mistletoe action. Win-win really.

It's December and I bought a 15 ft garland.

It's real and it gave my hands a stingy rash.

But I like it because it's pretty and I put a sparkly strand of ornaments in it. Now we are going to pretend it's our Christmas tree, turn on our string of lights around our curtains and soak up some happy Christmas spirit.

Happy December 1—go put up that tree!!!!

Required listening: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Jack Johnson

ladies LA fashion district trip

Last month some of us ladies decided to jump in the car and scurry to LA for a girl's trip to the fashion district (check!).

We walked through the flower district first because we heard it was pretty.

Then came the textiles, where I scored myself some jersey knit for $1 a yard! In colbalt blue! And some lace! And some zippers! And lots of yards of other rad fabrics too!....... I'm feeling the itch to bust out the sewing machine and get all sorts of domestic up in here.

One thing that is super awesome about the fashion district is how the vendors there are always one step forward on the latest trends in women's fashion. SO bummed I didn't pick me up a pair of these..... dang it.

Once our little feet couldn't carry us any farther we decided it was time to take our bags back to the car and find somewhere super tasty for lunch. Our pal Sarah led us to this bratwurst place I cannot, and unfortunately will not ever, be able to pronounce (Wurstkuche. You try it).

But Ohhhh NELLY! That place is awesome! All of us girls were totally into those dawgs. And the Belgian fries. And the chipotle aioli dipping sauce. And the cucumber water. I get acid reflux just dreaming about it all....

Ok, so if you were to let's say, come to visit me, I think I would probably make you take a trip into LA for some Wurstkuche awesomeness. And then you would thank me all the way home.

Before we called it a day we asked a nice looking gentleman to take a group shot.

And the whole time I was screaming in my mind, Holy shizac!—that dude has my camera. Don't drop that! Don't drop that! Don't drop that!

Much to my relief, he was quite steady with his hands and returned her back safely.

Weewwph.

Update:

Jas broke out of the hospital on Friday. We came home and threw everything in his suit case into the washer—to get all that hospital out of it. Then we threw all those warm, fresh out of the dryer clothes, on the sofa and cuddled up for a minute.

After that we sat and folded and folded and folded while we watched The Lion King.

I really like nights like this, maybe they're my favorite? So low-key, so relaxing and, with all that fabric softener, they smell pretty darn good. Juuuust what the Dr. ordered. (Ooooo, was that punny? Eyeye, I might be loosing my edge peeps.)

Jas is feeling much better than he did when he was checking himself in—but there's still some ground to make up and there's still life that we have to snap back into, catch up on and conquer.

Forward! March!!

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