Archive for 2013

christmas spirit.

to get into the christmas spirit we painted ornaments with my cousins.
garrett painted a black santa.
or i guess he really just painted a suit on a black ornament.


we went to the lower lights christmas show.
elder oaks sat across from us so it was interesting to watch his reactions (and lack of clapping...)


And of course one of my favorite parts of the season
CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!!!
 
Garrett said the whole family had to come.
so naturally we piled sal and jay in the car and drove around.
they looooved it...




getting out of bed.

getting out of bed in the morning is progressively getting harder and harder.
between a husband that radiates body heat and these to fluffy creatures why the heck would i want to get out of bed?
oh and the fact that its still dark when we get up isnt helping either.
or the cold...

desolation angels.



last night something strange happened.
we were laying in bed.
me with a book in hand
garrett with a book in hand.
and garrett says
"where did you get this book?"
it was desolation angels by kerouac (one of my all time favorites, and garretts too.)
i said i don't know.
and kept reading my book.
but he kept pushing it
"but think hard, where did you get this book?"
i said i don't know, amazon, di, some where books are cheap.
but he STILL pushed it.
"ok, just think really hard. when and where did you get this book?"
"and did you do all of these writings in it?"
i told him i honestly don't remember where i got the book.
mostly likely at di in rexburg a few years ago.
and then he said
"this is my book!"
"i let an ex girlfriend read it and i was so mad when i never got it back."
"i wrote in this book, theses are my writings."
boom baby.
i bought my husbands favorite book back for him with out even knowing it was his or that he was going to be my husband.

garrett just wrote his take on find his beloved book again Here.

house hunter.

I've been looking at homes in the area that we can potentially afford in the near future.
I would take any of these and be perfectly happy.







Salt lake has some of the best houses.
I mean, you should see the ones we can't afford
They are so beautiful and unique.
I like the idea of settling down here.
Well either here or in an rv on the road.
Or both...

work parties.

last night we attended garretts work party.
it was 10 minutes down the road but due to rush hour and bad weather it took us an hour and a half to get there.
but that hour and a half was well worth it.
he is so blessed to work with such a good group of people.
we had dinner at the fanciest restaurant either one of us have ever been too.
(think $40 a plate and options like Bison, Lamb, Elk, etc)
garrett and ryan played some christmas tunes.
all of the wives got a kindle fire hd... (say whaat? yeah i thought it was a prank at first.)
i had the best cheese cake of my life.
but one of my favorite parts was when one of the owners showed a mormon message.
this mormon message:



also, i really like this blog post by old gary
THIS ONE.

soul christmas

so the christmas show happened.
for having so little time to prepare for it, the show went really well.
and i even got roped into being in the band.
west memphis opened up and they nailed it.




Why?

Once upon a time i was in a family and child advocacy class.
it was definitely in my top 5 favorite classes i have ever taken.
in that class we talked a lot about why some people believe in not having children.
why people are scared to have children.
and why people should have children.
i ended up writing a very large paper on this topic and would often discuss it and research about it with a professor.
the other day he emailed me this video.
and its pretty good.

thanks.


garrett mentioned that my last post was "sad"
this one will not be. (well, in the end)

i have a habit of reading the news every morning at work.
and listening to npr in the afternoon.
lately there are headlines like;

"Terrified 91-year-old woman fights off nighttime intruder"
"Man charged with forcing women into prostitution"
"Girls escape parents after months in captivity"
"Thieves take donation jar from business, burglarize convenience stores."


for every 20 headlines like the ones above, there is an uplifting one like
"Muslim donor will  match contributions to LDS relief efforts in Philippines"


i usually end up leaving work not only stressed out because of work, but because of everything i read and heard in the news.

garrett has been in idaho preparing for his christmas show.
that means i spent my first night alone in salt lake (took me back to him working graves. woof)
which also means i didnt fall asleep until about 4:45am.
i had a lot of time to think.
(especially about the article about the 91-year old women who fought off a night time intruder)
instead of all of the terrible things going on in the world, and in our own city
i tried to focus on what i was thankful for.
and though im sure you can guess what my top 5 are right now, im going to tell you any way.
and in no particular order.

1.garrett
2. our animals and friends
3. family
4. nature
5. hot drinks & weekends

1. garrett. he gets to experience me at my best and my worst. and he still sticks around.
he lets me day dream about buying a house, an rv,  having kids, traveling, "when we have money we can get this...!", and everything else. he encourages me to do what ever it is i want to do. he's the biggest blessing in my life and i am so thankful we ended up together.

2. our animals and friends. weird that i put them in the same category? no. here's why. our friends are the best you can find. and so are our animals. our friends love our animals, and our animals love our friends. they are all there for us when we need them, let us stay at their homes when we are in idaho, come to visit  us in salt lake, and love us even when we are hard to be around. sal and jay are the best company to have when garrett is busy.

3. family. garrett and i are both blessed with families that support us in all of our adventures and love us unconditionally. they live an hour away from each other which makes vacations nice on us, because having to pick which family to see would be way too hard. 

4. nature. this earth is incredible. there is so much to see and do outside, and there isnt enough time. i love living so close to the mountains and having them right up in my face all of the time. we are so blessed to live where we do.

5. hot drinks & weekends.  hot drinks because, have you been out side lately? its cold. and there is nothing better then snuggling up in bed with a hot drink in hand, garrett to my side and some episode pulled up on an iphone for us to share. weekends?whats that? this is something i am thankful for in the future. our weekends have mainly felt like an extension of our week. but im am excited to have our weekends back to sleep in, estate sale shop, get breakfast, and do what ever we wan to do.








things take time.




thin places

for the past few years rexburg has been the home of many of my thin places.
(the term thin places comes from celtic spirituality) 
thin places meaning a place where the boundary between heaven and earth is especially thin. 
i think of them as my own holy grounds tucked in my own little corners of my own little world. 
the secret places i would go on my own and have those aha moments and my eyes opened wide.

this weekend when we were in rexburg it seemed old, tired, and distant.
and cold, very cold.
i went to one of my thin places, 
(off the bike bath, down the bank, under the bridge)
i sat there for a while and realized my thin places have changed and moved.
but im not sure where they are at now.

lately life just seems to go go go go go go.
and ive been hard on myself.
i get home from work and i feel like im going to burst into tears.

i havent been to the gym since before deep love
our car hasnt been cleaned since before we moved to salt lake
most days i dont run a brush through my hair
we havent been actual grocery shopping in who knows how long.
my house seems to always be one giant mess.
and a cold mess at that.
we have yet to make any friends here (no time for that) (also, our rexburg friends visit often, so we havent needed to)

between work, church callings, rock operas, christmas programs and life, we havent had time for any of those things above. 
which makes me feel not as bad.

ive been fighting with time, energy, emotion, creativity, and how to allocate these precious resources.

come december 21st life will slow down and i will be okay with that.
(well also be lake side in guatemala and im ok with that too.)
but come february, you will probably find me on here complaining about how boring our life is and the only thing we have to look forward to is summer. 

as you can tell from the pictures below, i spent a lot of time with sal this weekend.
garrett was busy doing christmas bells stuff so i spent the majority of my weekend with sal wondering around rexburg aimlessly. 



i bought a keyboard this weekend. we didnt know sal could play the piano!


we had breakfast at paradise donuts. a little piece of heaven in rexburg.
(sooo glad were eating gluten until january!)


lots of cuddles between sal and garrett this weekend.




has anyone seen sal?
(he would try to sink in as much as he could, wiggle real hard to try and get leaves on top of him and hold real still, as if i couldnt see him.)


and lots of rehearsing for the christmas bells cast.
(ever seen a show written and produced in 4 weeks? me neither. but its happening next week. and its sounding reaaaaal good.)







hobby search.

the other night as i was falling a sleep i had a sense of panic rush over me.
i asked garrett if he locked the bad guys out.
"yes"
both of them?
"yes. all of them"
(this seems to happen every night. and by both of them i mean both locks. not both bad guys)
i continued to try and fall asleep and then i realized the panic was from what i was thinking about before i asked about the bad guys.

here's the thing.
i married a very, very,VERY talented man.
which is great. on most days.
he writes, does slam poetry, plays music, writes rock operas, and christmas programs, has the most unique voice most people have ever heard, is so kind and sincere, and honestly the list goes on and on.
he is good at any thing and everything he tries. and the first time too.
and his hobbies keep us busy.

today i said "i dont know what i want to do right now."
naturally he suggested "write a rock opera."
like it aint no thing.

this is why i was panicking as i was trying to fall asleep:

1. i realized i no longer have any hobbies.
since school and work have consumed my life for the past 5 years i didnt have time to have hobbies.
i always had a job through college and seemed to always be taking 14-19 credits per semester.
i felt guilty if i did something such as a hobby  instead of spending that time studying.

2. (and my biggest concern)
our kids are going to realize how talented garrett is and say "mom, what can YOU do?!"
and i will have no answers.

so ive been hobby searching.
luckily, this great city of salt lake has lots of opportunists.
im going to try and attend workshops such as a paper flower making class and a cross stitching class.
im currently in the market for a key board so i can bring back some piano skills i once had.
im going to try some new recipes.
maybe take up knitting.
basically at this point, im willing to try anything.
plus, only having a job and not going to school leaves my evenings free.
so i actually have time for fun hobbies!!


one year.


we have been married for one year and one day.
it feels like we've been married for a lot more years and days then that. (in a good way)
but i am so glad i, as garrett puts it, "wooed" him enough to
asking 
"wanna date?"
and then
"we could get married or something...?"
and eventually"
i've got something for you."
he is the best man for me and i am so blessed to have him for eternity.

are you kitten me?

The story of how my phone ended up in the bath tub was not funny.
Right after it happened I screamed for garrett. I told him what happened and he started laughing.
Even yesterday when it was brought up again, it was not funny.
I told my mother the story, she too laughed.
But I have decided that it is in fact funny.
I had to get over the initial shock of potentially loosing my sweet baby iphone.
Because heavens know im not about to pay for a new one.
But here’s what happened.

It had been snowing here, and I was cold to the bones. 
So I decided to light some candles, set my phone up across the room to watch some netfilx and take a bath.
[Side note- almost every door in our house doesn't  close all of the way. With a mere push, the animals are at your feet.]

With that said;
Sal was chasing Jay,
jay ran into the bathroom, 
he couldnt stop himself in such a tight space,
knocked my phone across the room, 
the phone landed in the bath tub, 
the cat did too, 
the cats tail then caught fire from one of the candles, 
mean while I was trying to get my phone out of the tub,
the cat was clawing up my arm trying g to get the rest of his body out of the water, 
while i was also trying to put the fire out that is on the cats tail.
Woof.
He’s lucky he’s cute.

(he also broke a mirror this week. We just  bought our 4th mirror since moving to Salt Lake. we still only own 1 mirror...)

sorry.

my laptop is broken.
my phone is sitting in a bowl of rice.
our cat is as clumsy as i am- meaning he is breaking lots of things.
all of the time.
(which garrett just informed me that my older brother warned him before we got married that we cant have nice things because i will break them.....)
my house is a disaster.
work is a lot right now.
blah blah blah.

so until i get my life in order im just going to dump these photos right here. and not in order.

Sunday family dinner.

deep love!

ride home from idaho.

lil brother

friends. the best kind.

fan girl.

pre show, empty theaters.

what?

sal watching ducks on the river.

sal running laps around Sharons house in the leaves. 

jay misses us when were gone. 

Less stuff.

when sal lost his manhood

This past week (who am i kidding the next few weeks) has/will be crazy.
Last week Jay was sick and Sal went to the vet and lost his manhood so we had two sad animals in our house.
which made us sad,
Rehearsing started for Deep Love
and we went to a gluten free expo where i felt like a kid on halloween. 
toooooons for free stuff.
people were shoving gluten free desserts and breads in our face left and right.
and it was so good.
sundays weve been going to my aunt Bobbi's for dinner and to hang out with her kids.
she happens to live at the top of the hill, right down the street from the temple.







Insta- over load

Here are photos from the past few weeks from my phone


These three boys love each other so much & I love them so much.


I'm not usually a cat person so I was a tad surprised that I fell in love with Jay so fast. Minus his chewing on things and acting like a dog most of the time, he's pretty great to have around.




We got our family photos back from this past summer and they are really great.



Garrett keeps me company at the laundromat some times.


Monday has become Nacho Night at our house. 
We used to eat nachos with everything on them except cheese. Which might sound weird since most people believe that they are not nachos with out cheese. The last two weeks we have spoiled ourselves and put a tad of cheese on them.


There is no such thing as privacy in our house any more. We had a weird/long week which turned into a long weekend and in some ways felt like we didn't have a weekend. Today I decided to take a bath after work with candles. These guys felt left out and tried to join me.  
(i have never met a cat and dog who love water as much as these two.)


This is what conference looked like at our house during the Sunday morning session. 

Deep Love is in full swing and is happening in 2 weeks! (AHHHHHH)
you can see them on the news here:
and here is a commercial they were featured on:




Humans of NY

i follow humans of ny on facebook and instagram.
they take a photo of someone and  ask them a question or have a short conversation with them.

i really liked this one the other day.

"I’ve been examining my values lately, and determining whether or not I like the feelings that result from those values."
"What’s an example of one of your values?"
"I’m very competitive."
"And what’s a feeling that results from being competitive?”
"Jealousy."
"How does competitiveness result in jealousy?"
"When you have a competitive mindset, you tend to view the world in terms of winners and losers. So you resent other people getting recognition, because you somehow believe that less recognition is available to you. I’m learning that this is a false mindset. There’s not a fixed amount of success and recognition in the world. So another person’s accomplishments don’t diminish the accomplishments available to you."

The Parable of the Guinea Pigs

we had fast and testimony meeting today since next week is conference.

a sweet little 9 or 10 year old boy got up to bear his testimony.
he told a story about a guinea pig he got for Christmas that died.
to replace the one original guinea pig, his family got two more.
he talked about how blessed he was to have these guinea pigs and that He made it possible.
he also said that he is thankful that He gave us animals to love us and to teach us how to raise our children.

sal and jay, thanks for teaching us how to raise our future children...

days like this.

"i'm sure i'll collect and take the light wonder bombs
to the point in the universe
where sound does end.
it's the back porch of God's summer home.
and it's so quiet here, 
you float.
it feels the way cotton candy tastes.
and i say to Him God, why do i call you God?
and he says, 'because Grand Poohbah would sound ridiculous,'
and i say yes!
i knew you've had a sense of humor.
i saw what you did to phoenix
but God, so many poets have tried to tackle it
ginsberg, corso, and they missed.
what is holy, what is actually holy?"
-derrick brown



it's cold.
overcast.
rainy.
knit sweater and a cup of tea kind of day.

the kind of morning where your bed wont let go of your body.
your animals are snuggled at your feet.
when your alarm goes off, its still dark out.

days like this make me think of certain poems.
like buddy wakefields hurling crowbirds at mockingbars (hope is not a course of action)
and derick browns "a finger, two dots, then me."
and many other emotional and heart wrenching poems.

if you havent heard/read buddy wakefield, go do it.
but here is derrick browns poem.
because its the one that really keeps going through my mind today.
(go ahead and read it at my funeral or something garrett.)



Grown ups.

remember when Garrett got a job?
well, he loves it. (phew.)
and they treat him really well.
most days garrett takes me to work at 7:45am on his way to work.
and then he picks me up on his way home from work at 4:00pm.
this system works out really well most of the time.
i do travel all over the valley for work, but most days we just carpool because duh,
wouldnt you rather have someone else drive you around and keep you company?
me too.

the other day i had to be in west jordan at 6:30am
so i took the car.
when i picked garrett up from work i got to see his office!
(which i hadnt seen before.)

daww. 
look at him making business calls and "creating flexo excellence" 
(what ever that means.)
we are so blessed to have such good jobs, with great schedules!

want to know what the best decision we made this month was?
getting gym memberships.
we werent doing yoga as much as we wanted to because after work we had no motivation.
so now we go to the gym.
and we actually go.
its great.
the past few times we have gone weve spent an hour and half- two hours there at one time.
and it feels so good.
plus, (i know it supposed to be bad for you and cause cancer and stuff, but so do cell phones right...) we have unlimited tanning...
i like to call it motivation to work out.
knowing that as soon as im done doing that cardio, weights, and 12 minute abs that i get to go lay in the warm tanning bed for 8-10 minutes gets me through it.

they also have hydro massage beds and this cool red light therapy machine that is supposed to help with tight muscles, stress, bad acids, and a whole list of other things.
so thats pretty cool.
basically, gym memberships are really great.




animal love.

i realize, as im sure you have too, that our animals rule our lives.
but what ever. we love them so much.
and they are entertaining and loads of fun to have around.
so im just going to keep talking about them and posting pictures.

we got jay to keep sal company during the day.
and through sal looooves to chase him around 
and jay encourages the chasing sometimes/most of the time.
they really are becoming buds.



when we leave the house in the morning we shut all of the doors and let the animals roam around freely.
we even block off the bedroom door sometimes because our apartment is old and you can just push lightly on the door and it opens.
usually when we get home from work both animals run to the door to greet us

well, the other day we came home and the house was quite.
no animals around
all of the doors were still shut
and i swear i thought someone had stolen our animals.
garrett opened the bedroom door and sal stood up on the bed with a look on his face like 
"oh, your home...?"
as jay slowly crawled out from under the bed and stretched.

these two are having all sorts of adventures together, snuggle up together, drink out of the same dish at the same time
and sal has less anxiety about us being gone during the day.
but he is still just as excited to see us when we get home.
(and garrett looooooves jay so much. i didnt realize he liked cats. and i dont think he did either.)



i sometimes think that jay is starting to pick up some of sals habits
and is starting to act more like a dog than a cat...

when we first got jay, sal started to "act out" as we would say in my field of work.
he was like a jealous older brother.
which means sal spent a lot of time in his box.

in his what?
yes.
box.
when sal was just a lil guy and would do bad things no matter what we did, it seemed like he still didnt care.
you could pick him up by his scruff and scold him and his tail would still be wagging.
and we didnt want to hit him or anything like that.
so the vet suggested putting a box over him.
his breed has really bad anxiety and doesnt like to be alone.
so when he's in the box one, he's all alone.
and two, he cant see what we are doing and it drives him crazy.

well, since he was acting out and spending more time in the box it got to the point where when he did something he knew he wasnt supposed to do like stick is face in the kitty litter or pin jay down until he was meowing really loud, as soon as i would say "SAL!" he would head straight to his box.
and since he couldnt get the box over his head by himself, he just lays in it.
we sure do love these little guys.
i am so glad i married a man who loves animals.
so glad.





no gluten please.

i wish i could go to any place and instead of saying "no chicken please"
i could say "no gluten please."
that would be really nice.
someone invent that please.

my coworker who sees me snack on dried fruit, nuts, and rice chips all day was asking what we eat, you know, besides snacks?
well honestly, we mainly eat those kinds of snacks.
but when we do cook, we cook things like
Zucchini Fritters (with coconut flour)

and

Zucchini, Black Bean and Rice Skillet (with pink rice)

(obviously we had lots of zucchini from mamma hayes garden.)

we also just bought a tortilla press.
i see loooots of corn tortillas in my future.

we also have a cook book call Small Plates and Sweet Treat
a COMPLETELY gluten free cookbook with recipes that you would never guess were gluten free.

so really, we are eating pre-tay good.

AND get this.
with all the research ive been doing on gluten lately i learned a lot about the connection between autism and gluten.
and though there are no hard facts as to what/why taking gluten out of the diet of a child who has autism works, for some reason it just does.
i was working with a mother who has a child with autism and nothing seemed to be helping.
i suggested she do a little research about gluten, as well as gave her some of my findings.(along with consulting with her pediatrician of course)
I called her back this morning to see if things were getting any better..
(my job is really great in that we dont just connect families with resources and say "good luck" but we actually call them back and make sure they got what the needed and if not we make sure they do.)
boom baby. it is working.
thank you stupid celiac for making us go gluten free and helping others.

the long and short of it



our days have been long.
with short nights.
very short nights.
being an adult is starting to wear on me.
but i guess its good for us since, well you know, were going to be adults for a looong time.
we are blessed with good jobs , and shoot my job is even fulfilling.
(how could it not be when im helping families all day?)
we have families that love us.
animals that adore us.
(at this rate we will have a zoo by Christmas. come visit us, free of admission)
a nice home to lay our heads down in.
we live in a magical city that has adventures waiting for us.
our friends would do anything for us (and us them)
we get to attend a ward where we are needed. (you know how good it feels to be needed.)
we are going strong on not eating gluten, even though it is my weakness.
and you know,
i am in love with my life.
every. single. minute.





Welcome.



Welcome to the Sherwood home.
where every one needs attention.
nobody wants to leave your side.
3 am is play time.
what's your's is theirs
and when you leave for work every morning, they act as if their little worlds have been shattered.

back to school


on friday i picked matt up from the airport, ran some errands, picked garrett up from work and then we headed off to idaho to take matt back to school. it was a tight fit, but we made it work.
this was a much welcomed and needed trip.
it was so nice to have a break from real life and be back in rexburg again!
though i dont forget how much i love that little town and the people there,
it always surprises me how lovely it is to visit and be back.
i am so glad we are only 3 1/2 hours away.

while we were there we were able to make it to olivia's birthday party, have slumber parties with two of my favorite people around, move matt into his new apartment, play disc golf, take sal swimming at the warm slough, see friends play music,  and get a friend for sal!

meet jay gatsby, the newest member of our family!
he had just been neutered 30 minutes before we picked him up so its been an interesting 24 hours making sure he's not active, doesnt eat and is still happy.
him and sal are slowly warming up to each other.
but i can tell they are going to be the best of friends.
(at least they better be. we got jay to keep sal company while we are gone during the day.)

jay likes to get lost in sals hair.

when we go to idaho sal knows he can be free there. 
he runs and runs and runs.

when we were playing disc golf sal chased a little girl, a boy on a bike, tried to join some skaters on the half pipe, found two pieces of pizza in the grass and devoured them and tried to go swimming in the duck pond.

to say the least, he was a hand full this weekend.

its good to have so many good friends so close and to now have matt close as well!






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