Craft for a Super Bowl Sunday

Yesterday I agreed to "do homework" with a friend from school. No, I am not quotation happy tonight. She told her husband that we were going to do homework so that she could work on a Valentine craft for him. We stopped at Hobby Lobby to grab some supplies for her and I picked up things that I needed including materials to make this lovely craft:

My favorite love quote. Thank you John Lennon.

Isn't it adorable? I got the idea from the Happy Scraps. Macey was able to work on an adorable present for her husband and I was able to start working on this last night. (Okay. I might have also worked on a present for my husband too, but since I know Wolf reads this blog on occasion, I cannot exactly post about that. Even though what I was working on is also adorable and can easily be altered into something you can make for students.)

The colors are a little funny in all the pictures. The red is a dark cranberry and the floral design for the O is more of a cream colored background.
I traced the letters onto scrapbook paper and then cut them out by hand. For the flags, hearts, and letters, I used my lovely Silhouette to cut them out and then used a red and white floss to string them together.
I probably should have worked more on unpacking instead of making this, but parts of your house can look cute while your living room has most your possessions boxed up, right?

Last night made me realize that I need to find more people to craft with! Please please please even if you are somewhat slightly interested in any type of crafting, call me. I want to do it with you.

Why I love My Husband

Once upon my birthday, my darling Wolf took work off so we could play in the afternoon and evening. He bought me the coolest machine ever which I fully plan on using as soon as I put our new place together. (Cake pops. Need I say more?)
We were both absolutely exhausted as two full time college students with 3/4 time jobs are bound to be partway through the semester. As we sat in bed (I basically live in my bed. I eat in bed, do homework in bed, craft in bed, etc. I know it is a bad habit and I am trying to get out of it.) he asked what I wanted to do that afternoon.
"I don't know. Maybe go out to dinner a little early to avoid the dinner rush and then hang out with Mik and Ange." I turned to look at him. He was sleeping. He fell asleep in the five seconds it took for me to answer his question.
I grabbed my phone and started to play games on it until he woke up ten minutes later.
"So did you decide what you want to do?"
"Well, dinner and then play with my sibs."
I watched him that time. He once again fell asleep before I could get out my shortened sentence. Am I really that boring soothing?
Twenty minutes later, he woke up. Again.
"What do you want to do on your birthday?"
I didn't answer him this time because I assumed he would be snoozing before I could abbreviate my plans to him. After several seconds, he startled me. "Well?"

Has anyone fell asleep during a conversation with you? Twice?

Birthdays past

It's my birthday! Go eat something sweet and listen to my favorite birthday song by the Beatles.
What are my big plans for today?
1. Go eat lunch with my bff Angi at the Pendulum Court. Sounds fancy? It's in the science center at BYU.
2. Get picked up by my darling husband from school.
3. Do something fun...yet to be determined.
4. Eat at Tucanos.
5. Do something else fun.
6. Possibly make cupcakes and eat a lot of them.

Sounds awesome? It makes me think about what I have done in the past for my birthdays. Curious? Sit down and enjoy. You can guess how old I was for each of these.
-One birthday, my siblings opened all my presents for me. I was quite capable of doing it, but they were just too excited to wait for my slow hands to tear off the paper.
- I had a friend birthday party with a dress up theme. All the little girls showed up as princesses except for my best friend Rachel. She came as a lion.
-My entire family went to the Utah Fun Dome (formally known as the 49th Street Galleria).
-My entire family went to see....the Lion King.
-I had a sleepover with my closest of friends.
-Two years in a row, I threw myself awesome parties. One year was Beatles themed and the other year was just a rocking party. (My brother still remembers how loudly and gross my friend Justin sang.)
-My family decided to throw a surprise party for me but I figured it out in the early stages of them planning it. I would like to apologize again to anyone I gave a hard time to because I knew what they were up to.
-Last but not least, my most memorable birthday. I threw myself a surprise party. I wrote about it eons ago here. (Don't judge me. It's not my best work.)

Cooking: A Dying Art Form

Okay, so cooking really is not a dying art form for lots of the world, but it has been for me ever since June 2, 2011. ("Wait! Isn't that when you got married?") How very observant of you.
Once upon a time, I got married to my handsome chef musician redhead prince and I stopped cooking. Mr. Handsome chef musician redhead prince was not only one of the best chefs west of the Mississippi, but he adored cooking. He will even cook me meat even though he is a vegetarian.
It made sense for Wolf to cook when we were first married. I was going to school and working, but he only had work. Once fall semester started, we were already in the habit of enjoying his gourmet meals so I have really only cooked five or six times (and that is being generous) until this weekend.
Following is my meandering monologue of how I came to cook as much as all the meals added together in the 7.5 months preceding this weekend.
On Tuesday my Wolf had a tickle in his throat but he still cooked for me.
By Thursday darling Wolf could tell the tickle was turning into something mightily nastier but he still cooked up dan dan noodles (try it; you won't be sorry), tres leche cake, and helped me make spring rolls for a dinner with my brother Mark and Jill.
Thursday evening poor Wolf collapsed.
Friday brought on a school-less day for Wolf, and by the time I got home from my day, we were both exhausted and opted for take out from our wonderful neighborhood Brick Oven.
Saturday arrived with Wolf feeling even worse and I was craving ATK's German Apple Pancakes (sorry, you have to be a member to see the link. Google it and you can find a recipe. That was an order. Google it and find that recipe.) I made it and we both were in heaven as we finished the entire batch in under five minutes. (I also burned my hand pretty badly, but that's another story.)

I heated up leftovers for the rest of my meals and begged Wolf to eat anything.
Fast forward to today.
I head off to church with my wonderful brother because my car doors are frozen shut (thank you Mark!)
As I get home, I am craving cupcakes like something bad. (Thank you Jill...)
Instead I go for Smitten Kitchen's homemade oreos.

They are amazing. Trust me. Try every single one of these recipes that I list. They are some of my favorites.
Dinner? ATK's Nut-Crusted Chicken Cutlets with oregano. It was easily the best crusted chicken I have ever eaten in my life.

I now feel like a successful housewife.
My house is clean, my husband is almost all the way better, and I have successfully created (or helped create) several delicious delicacies.

Oh, and if you want an oreo, I have several sitting on a plate in my kitchen. We still have some tres leche cake in the fridge and do not need this many sweets. Please. Take them off my hands.

I'm movin' out.

Billy Joel, how nice of you to describe it perfectly.
Just over a week ago, my husband got the call from our landlady. Because Wolfie promised to do a blog post about this, I will just say that we were told we had to move. in. less. than. 30. days.
I hate moving. Abhor it. I hate packing up everything, leaving nothing except a few memories and driving down the street to a new place. Then it takes a few days to unpack everything and remember where you unpacked everything.
Now I get the opportunity to move in the middle of a semester.
I have done that once before, but it was my single little self moving a few weeks into an easy semester. The move took all of four hours.
This time, it will be one month into a harder semester with more hours at work and more junk to move. Two little newlyweds can accumulate quite a bit of junk. Especially two little newlyweds that have more kitchen gadgets then you have in your kitchen. (I would almost be willing to make a bet on that. Unless you are a professional chef.)
My darling Wolf thinks it will only take a few hours.
I love his innocent optimism.
Where is it that we are moving? Back to my favorite city. O-Town. I love Orem. I love it more than I hate moving. I love that in some parts of it there will be two feet of snow but in another part, it will be bare. I love that it blooms at different times in the spring.
Where more specifically? Close enough to the mall that we can see it out of our gorgeous large windows in our living room and spare bedroom.
It makes sense; I have less than two months left at BYU, I work in AF, Wolfie works at the mall, and he has over a year left at UVU.
If you never visited me at my current place, you have just about two weeks left in which to do so.
Come visit me.
Come visit me any evening--except Friday--and entertain me while my husband is at work.

My Tiny Tim Moment

It all started with our trip to Ikea.
Wolf and I headed up to Draper to pick up glass bottles for part of some Christmas presents. We also picked up some cheap storage for all my crafting supplies, new dishes, and Christmas supplies.
Wolf was getting sick of my dozens of boxes lined up in our spare room. Even though we got quite a bit of storage, I have a feeling that it will still not hold all my crafting supplies...

On our drive home, we had to stop at the mall. We got a sweet new game (Pandemic) from my favorite game store in the world (Games People Play).
The whole reason we had to stop by the mall was to grab a bunch of boxes the girls at the kiosk had been hard at work with. Boxes like the ones seen in the below picture.

There were probably about 50 boxes that Wolf and I had to take out to his car. We did not want to make more than one trip so we did what any good couple would have done; we "borrowed" a wheelchair. I pushed out a very full wheelchair while he carried a large, falling apart, black trash bag.
One trip.
The boxes were shoved in every crevice of his car that was not taken up by Ikea merchandise. We had a very full car.
On our way back in to take the wheelchair to its resting place, Wolf offered me a ride.
I got in the chair and as we got up to the doors of the mall, we ran into a crowd. A man opened the door for me and everyone else in his group awkwardly moved out of the way to let the gimp and her escort back in. I put on the cheesiest smile I could muster up.
"Thank you so much, sir!"
"No problem."
"You have a Merry Christmas!"
".....you too....."
I was half tempted to throw in a "God bless you" but I thought that would be going a little overboard.

Wolf thought the whole thing was a little overboard, but I am good at creating awkward moments and I relish them.

I LOVE what I get to do

Guess what?
For the past three days, I have not gone to BYU. Instead I have been heading North to a cute little elementary school in Lindon. I get to work with a 2-3 grade class and an awesome teacher. I stay there for six hours each day and every day is an adventure and really gets me excited to graduate and get my own class...until I decide to have little ones of my own.
Some of my favorite quotes so far:
"The sneakers threw eggs at your garage door."
{My teacher wanted the students to write a sentence describing what some sneaky people did while she was on vacation this summer.}
Example of something extinct? "People that do drugs all day."
Example of something endangered? "When people live at the side of a mountain that is about to explode, they are endangered."

Today, I got three hugs from students. I feel bad because I should not encourage them hugging me; I should really discourage it. What are you supposed to do when a cute little third grader just comes up and does it out of the blue?

Last, but definitely the cutest:
During this week, the students have been learning how to write letters. On Monday, they wrote a letter to their teacher. Tuesday was for someone in the classroom. Wednesday held one for the principle. Today they were supposed to write one to someone they appreciate. Emphasis on someone in their family.
I was collecting the letters and the students lined up to go to social studies. One little girl who I shall call T handed me her paper and said it was for me. "Thank you, T." I accepted the letter and put it in my pile, thinking that she was just giving it to me to put in the pile.
She pulled it out and put it firmly in my hand. "No. I wrote the letter for you."
I think my heart melted.
I waited until she was out of the classroom before I read her letter. It was the sweetest thing in the world!
"Dear Miss. Yahgar. I think you are so cool and fun. I think your last name is cool cause it's Ya gaer. What are you being for Halloween? What is your favirte candy? Mine is every one! It's cool that you go to byu!!!!!! I think that you are so prety. Are you married? I'm defently Not married. Love, T"
Well, that settles it. I'm cool and fun and I cannot wait to teach full time.

I like to travel

This is a lovely map of all the states and countries I have been to. Not as much as I would like, but it is a nice start.

To do tomorrow:

1. Finish studying

2. Take (and ace) my last midterm

3. Take a short break to relax my mind (cooking? tv show? cleaning? The possibilities are endless!)

4. Decide on a costume to wear to my Auntie's annual Halloween party

5. Complete several hours of homework

6. Forgo dinner to save my strength for the cake eating competition and so I can better savor my Aunt's amazing food

7. Pick up my bff and favorite little sister to head up to the par-tay

8. Eat amazing food

9. Beat all my cousins in the "no hands" cake eating competition...again

10. Blow my nose to get all the cake out of it

A bit of a problem

I have a problem in my relationship right now.

I have only cooked the husby and myself one (and a few halves of a) meal.

I have yet to do a load of laundry.

I make the bed 1 in 7 times.

I do clean, but it is only what he does not have time for.

If I need anything and we happen to be together, he makes me stay put and he gets it.

I feel way too pampered to be married.

Granted, I am in school right now and he gets most of this done in the hours he spends alone. This will probably all change when fall semester starts and we both will be gone most of the day. (At least I will be the first one home so I can finally start doing things.)