a few thoughts

1. Today I have been pondering the irony of St. Patrick's Day being the green holiday. It makes me feel like it should be green, sunny, and springy outside. Unfortunately, today feels like the coldest day of March yet. :(

2. Its amazing how much better I feel after going to bed at 9pm last night. I've come to the realization that a lot a little sleep does a lot of good in my life.

3. Speaking of good weather and vacation sleep, I'm excited to take advantage of some SUNSHINE when I go to GREECE in three weeks.

4. And of course, a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my only favorite baby brother! I can't believe he is 15 today. Does this mean he is going to start dating girls soon???? My favorite memory of Nathan is the fact that for the first probably 5 years of his life he thought his name was buddy, because that's what we all called him. :) Happy Birthday Buddy! I love you!

financial challenge

Scott and I are the Emergency Preparedness leaders in our ward. Which basically means we have gone from having no emergency preparedness to slowly building our food storage, water storage, first aid, 72-hour kits, etc. But one thing that I have been thinking a lot about lately is financial preparedness.

Neither Scott nor I are very big spenders, neither of us have any debt, and we have enough to take care of all of our needs. So, we somehow went for a year and half without actually having a written budget. As one of my New Year Resolutions I decided to create one. The past couple of months it has been really interesting to see how much money we have saved by simply knowing how much we are spending and on what.

Anyway, just as I was getting more and more interesting in learning to manage our money better, one of the blogs I follow [here] issued an organizing your finances challenge this week and I decided to join! Because we don't need a debt elimination plan, not all of it applies to us, but there is a lot of useful information on organizing your finances better. Wish me luck! I will post about how it goes at the end of the week. AND...more on Emergency Preparedness a little later this week as well!

suprises

I like to think that I know my husband pretty well. Better than anyone else, actually. But lucky for me, there are a few things about him I never would have guessed.

Like how great he is at making me origami flowers for v-day.

 

And how even though he doesn't care about his own birthday, he'll do anything to make sure that I love mine. 

Like take me shopping at the mall. 

And slave away in the kitchen to not only make me a birthday dinner

....but a fairly gourmet birthday dinner (and cake, of course).

Too bad my lame iPod pictures don't do it justice.

things that make me happy this week.

1. quiet mornings on the bus for thinking and studying
2. coat and boots that keep me warm on a bus with a broken heater
3. a busy husband who still makes time for me
4. warm soup on cold days
5. reconnecting with old friends
6. getting rid of piles of clothes I don't wear anymore
7. making plans for valentine's day
8. a good book
9. yummy frozen yogurt (pomegranate with fresh strawberries of course!)
10. haircuts

This is what I'm reading right now:

true blue

Basketball has never been one of my favorite sports to watch. But what BYU fan can't get excited about Jimmer? Check out this awesome music video! :)

ksl.com - 'Jimmer Jammers' sing 'You've been Jimmer'd'

an old love restored

I forgot how much I like music. Yep. After several years of rap, hip hop, reggaeton, etc, I got tired of it. Although the beat makes for a good dance party, I just realized how awful the lyrics to most of these songs really are. --So, sadly, I stopped listening to music altogether.

But, I'm glad to say, I have rediscovered my love for music. I've spent a lot of time listening to music at work lately and I remember why I used to love it so much! It can be so uplifting when you listen to the right kind of music. And, it just makes my day so much better!

Some of my new (and old) favorite artists, in no particular order:

Norah Jones

Teddy Geiger

Matt Nathanson

KT Tunstall

Jack Johnson

Matt White

Dido

Deep Blue Something

Edwin McCain

Jason Mraz

Journey

Regina Spektor

Ingrid Michaelson

Alanis Morissette

I told you I've been listening to a lot of music lately. :)

[just because every post needs a picture]

my newest secret addiction

Good thing I bought a $20 gift certificate for only $10 from CityDeals! :)

 

2011 goodreads challenge

or New Years Resolution #2:

Read 50 books in 2011

I semi-recently discovered Goodreads and I love it! I spend way too much time browsing through all the books on there and seeing what other people are reading. So if you like to read, you should definitely get an account and become my friend! :)

So far, I'm doing pretty well with the goal. 50 books means reading about a book a week. I'm currently about 2 chapters into my 5th book and its only the third week of January!

Of all the books I've read so far this year, my favorite was probably The Book Thief. It is set in Germany during WWII, but it isn't your typical historical fiction book. It is told from the perspective of death and tells the story of a young girl who doesn't really understand the whole situation. Although it is sad, I love the unique descriptions and perspective of this book. I highly recommend it!

new year's resolution #1

write on here more often.

Also, we finally bought a dining room table yesterday. I couldn't find a picture of the one we got online, but it looks kind of like this:

I can't wait to go pick it up tomorrow! :)