Virtue and Vice... Are computer's nice?

So here's the thing.


I got hired on at a job that I can work from home. This means though that I'm ALWAYS on the computer. This also means that as soon as I'm done for the day, I rarely get back on. Something about staring at a 16" wide screen for 5+ hours a day is just not appealing. This should explain why there's been a bit of a lull in my posting.
With school being out, my daily life is now void of the rigorous schedule I once had, and I find myself just wasting time.  I read so many blogs and think of how cool their lives are, that I forget to actually LIVE mine. I refresh facebook more times than ever to see if there's just ONE update. You can only do this so many times before you go crazy. I discovered Etsy and made myself and account. I've scrolled through more pages on pinterest than I care to admit!


Long story short.... once I'm done working for the day, I'm just going to be off the computer. My eyeballs just can't take it.


Also, I really encourage you all to take time to be outside. It's amazing how many things we forget to enjoy the older we become.

Weekend post on Wednesday?

Here's a bit of what we did this weekend....

It was mahhhvelous.


And yes, I'm posting about the weekend in the middle of the week. Sue me!


Also have you guys seen this?

Kyle showed this to me on Sunday and I've been singing the song since then.


Happy Hump Day! 
(not like that you sickos....)

Tulip Fields

About a month ago Kyle and I went to the tulip fields near Thanksgiving Point. My family used to do this every year around Mother's Day and I really wanted to go. I love tulips. It fascinates me that such a simple flower can have so many shades of one color, let alone so many different colors. Tulips epitomize the idea that simplicity is the highest form of sophistication... or however that saying goes :)


The tulip's petals shine in dew,
  All beautiful, but none alike.
      -- James Montgomery

today

Today I read a book. From front to back.
I cleaned a bit.
I laid out in the sun.
I played in the dirt, just exploring my garden.
I ate a sleeve of Ritz crackers and some grapes.


Today I remembered the reading doesn't just help me write, it helps me think. It throws off the cloudiness of unformed thoughts and provides beauty through their formation. Pure, unstructured, yet formed thought is difficult to convey. It's like trying to fit a fire hose stream into a funnel; too many thoughts to focus on and narrow down to just one that matters.


Today I looked at my phone to call my husband. Being too lazy to dial his number, or look him up in 'contacts', I went to the call log. Calling insurance companies for a job leaves my call log FILLED with "unknown" numbers. It struck me then as I was scrolling through this that maybe that extends more metaphysically to my life than I imagined. How many times have I attempted to find the "known" by calling the unknown? I finally found his number... I hadn't called him since last Saturday.


Today I felt like I was 7 again. My nails still have a ton of dirt underneath them, I haven't washed my hair in 3 days, I recklessly refused to wear sunscreen and now I'm burnt and I imagined what birds must be thinking when they travel.


Today I thought of how quickly time passes. Of past memories both painful and happy. Of times I wish I could go back to, and yet how glad I am to be here in the present. I thought of the lessons I want my progeny to understand from my life. I wondered at how the habits I have now are going to affect me, for better or worse. I thought of what it really means to live.


Today I was happy.

relaxing isn't what it used to be

For quite sometime now I feel like I've been runningRunningRUNNING. Deadlines, due dates, readings, quizzes, tests, errands, cleaning, lunch dates, hubby time, friend time, family time, service time, projects, presentations etc. etc. Since school started last August it's been like this and of course, getting married over the Christmas break didn't help slow things down.
Now that school is out and I'm not home to spend the summer I've found myself with a LOT of free time; free time that I haven't had in a while and have forgotten what to do with. I remember having hobbies.... once upon a time.... I think...? Due to my at-home job, Kyle's job moving people around Utah/Wasatch county and friends having busy schedules, the free time is primarily alone.
What does one do with all this solidarity?


Maybe it's just time for me to grow up a little and be more self-reliant. Self-reliant in that I can entertain myself (more so than being the only one to laugh at my jokes. that's just sad.) So I've started compiling a list of books to read over the summer. I remember that I used to like reading before that precious joy got swallowed up in textbooks. I remember I really enjoyed running before it became the means to getting skinnier. I enjoyed painting too oddly enough. For someone as un-crafty as I, this is truly odd.


These things are good and nice, but I think that for me to grow the most this summer I need to learn how to be happy without needing anyone or anything. So there's the goal. Let's see how I do shall we?

uhhh. it's been over 2 weeks? already?

I seriously have no idea where the time went. One second I was excited for mom to be coming here, the next second I'm trying to remember went she left and what I've been doing for the last week.


Having mom here was so great. It's weird realizing how similar she and I are, especially since I've been refused to accept any similarity for the last... well... 18-19 years. We did a TON of things during her visit! We got to go to Women's Conference and learn how to be better wives, moms (not applicable yet!) women, and contributors in our respective communities. It was a little nuts being back on campus, but with 20,000 women who are all trying their hardest to get to the bookstore.

On Saturday we went up to Salt Lake to check out the new City Creek mall that's up there. It's amazing. We spent 4 hours there and got through maybe half of the mall. After that we picked up Kyle and headed down to Scipio for our good friends' wedding reception. Mom grew up near there and she was able to visit with a good high school friend while we were at the reception.
Monday we dinked around in Orem. Mom introduced me the wonders of Hobby Lobby (I'm in serious trouble...) and she taught me how to use my pressure cooker! I introduced her to jdawgs and we also went to the dollar theater to watch This Means War (with Chris Pine and Tom Hardy in it... it's hard to go wrong).
Tuesday we packed everything up and headed to lunch with some people we work with. After that she drove up to the airport and I bawled my eyes out at Ikea.


But it really was great having her here :)


Since then, Kyle and I have started to organize our office more. We got him a desk and accompanying accessories (I think he's pretty excited!).
Yesterday we had very slow days for work and so we randomly decided to go up and spend the day in Park City. It was great! Since skiing season is over the town was really quite. We looked at a ton of galleries, boutiques, and this hot sauce shop that Kyle loved. For lunch we went to this place called Vinto. It's an Italian restaurant, but it's really retro/modern. They use an electronic ordering system, so when you give the waiter your order they punch it on a tablet and send it to a screen in the kitchen. It really streamlines the whole process and it's super fast! Plus the food was to die for. It's officially our new favorite place :) And it's really well priced for what you get! For dessert we got a mini-sampler of 6 flavors of gelato. Have you guys ever had ginger gelato? I LOVED it. After touring Park City, we went and saw Avengers. Yes, it's amazing. I really loved how all the characters played off each other so well. The movie was actually a lot funnier than I had anticipated it being which was great!

Hope you guys are having a great weekend!

Gunnin' With the Guys!

Jess has wanted me to post more regularly on the blog, since it's ours. I hope you don't mind a "guy" topic for a change :)

A few weeks ago, some buddies and I went shooting up the canyon, and we had a blast (literally). I wanted to tell somebody about it, so I decided I'd blog it, but because of school, I'm just getting around to it.

So if guns aren't your thing, I'd skip this blog post (or call your husband or boyfriend over and have them take a look).

This is a Mosin-Nagant. Russian mag-fed bolt-action rifle, shoots a 7.62 mm round. They're great guns for a good price - the old Soviet bloc has a huge surplus of them, so they're very cheap. Most never have seen action,  My friends purchased a few for about $130 each, and the rounds for about 19 cents each. They had a lot of ammo, so we decided to take the 6 of them out and break them in.

We brought along plenty of targets; everything from stuffed animals and videotapes to golf balls and tangerines.

Yeah, we're so bad!

Oh yeah. And a bowling ball.

Can you tell we mean business? (Check out Jonathon's shirt above)

We started out by setting up our range with targets strewn out across the 40-yard ravine. We then loaded up the guns and set up across the lip of the ravine in a line facing the far wall.   My friend David, who was acting as pseudo-rangemaster, said we'd start out taking turns down the line shooting at the same target til it was hit, after which the proceeding person could choose a new target. Since I was closest to him, I chose first, and after scanning the range decided on a small tangerine on a stake not 25 yards away.

Sorta like this. Can you see the tangerine?

Well, I missed. And the next guy missed. And the next, and the next, and the next.

 After going through the line of guns (a few non-MN's added up to about 7-8) a few times David finally succeeded in knocking the little tangerine off the stake, though he didn't hit it. We decided to halt and check it out.

This is the stake the tangerine was on.

This was the stretch of ground 20 feet behind the stake.

 Yeah, pretty nuts. After that, we decided to open it up and just shoot whatever we wanted.

Reloading

Jonathon, setting up drilled-out golf balls to hit with some handguns.

Handgun rounds, from closer up.

David got out his muzzle-loading black powder rifle.

Whoa!

The muzzle loader has two triggers: one to set the hairline trigger, and the other to actually fire. We had a funny moment as Nathan (David's younger brother) went to pull the trigger on the muzzle loader. Watch:

We all do that at some point (:


Finally, we brought out the grand finale: a fiberglass/ceramic bathroom sink and countertop. Shows off the MN's firepower nicely, although there are a few random shots in there... Just for fun!

Lots of fun, we'll probably do it again this summer!