A few things that made my day.

1: I was sorting my recycling and putting it in all the correct bins when this guy with a backpack walks up and hands me a $1,000,000 bill. He just said "Here you go" and walked away. I kind of squeaked out a thanks between wondering if he was a rapist and trying to figure out if it was real money (just briefly, massive amounts of common sense set in after that). The front was pretty normal looking (except that it read $1,000,000), but it didn't have grains, watermarks or raised ink (see, all of that forgery training WAS helpful). The back had a message (in teensy tiny print) that talked about how if we've ever committed a sin, we're going to hell. But then it talked about how if we access the atonement we can have eternal life (not in so many words).  I thought it was a cute little object lesson about how that really is what it's like to be able to repent.

2: Much less serious. I was dropping some stuff off at the secondhand store outside drop-off, and spotted this amazing treasure.

In case you can't believe your eyes, it is an inflated blowfish with googly eyes (tackseedermists r us), suspended in a bird cage. I love it so much, I was tempted to steal it and use it in my new bathroom decor. But then, someone is going to pay good money for that, and that would be like taking food from the mouths of children. But I still have two questiosns; WHO?!?!?! and WHY??????!!!!!!

3: I was shopping today for my new bathroom (shush, I wanted an excuse to redecorate anyways), and got a little obsessed with green. I thought about putting a fake plant in my bathroom, but I'm not a huge fan of fake plants. Then I thought about putting a REAL plant in my bathroom, but I knew that I'd have to get one that does REALLY well in shade, or I'd have to be neurotic, and only put it in the bathroom when company comes over. Anyways, I wandered over to the plant section, and looked for a things that didn't require much sunlight. I found a cute little plant that I thought would just be fun to have in my kitchen. So I went and I found a little pot for it. The pot was really little, but it still would need some potting soil in order to let my plant grow to its full potential. So I found a bigger pot, and then I thought that it'd be kind of lame to buy an entire bag of potting soil for just this little plant and its little pot, and hey, I've been wanting to grow some kind of garden! I might as well start something useful and practice. So I found a cheap plastic planter box, and got a cilantro plant, a tomato plant, and a basil plant (salsa and pesto, yay!!!). I got them home, and wanted to get them into the sunlight so that I don't kill them on their first day, but I was going to a friend's house soon, and couldn't find the drill to drill the box onto our little railing thing outside of our door. So, I dug down deep to my "Let's make it practical, who cares if it's pretty" roots, and here is the result. 

Which you can't see at all. Argh! It's taped on. I would have used duct tape because that would've been so much funnier, but I couldn't find THAT either. But I had a good giggle about how proud of me my mom would be. 

4: Last, I spent the evening with two awesome couples, and one of the awesome couple's awesome kids. They've been so good to me for the past couple of months that we've been hanging out, and especially while Matt's been gone. Well awesome child #1, Izacc, is slightly dramatic at times, and tonight was no exception (he's four). We'd walked to a playground after dinner, where the adults digested while the boys played, and just for setup/contrast, Izacc's little brother just turned two, and is wearing some T4 clothes already. He's kind of a beast, and literally ran head first into a couch tonight and it didn't even phase him. He tries so hard to talk, and his parents can understand most of it and he tries so hard to mimic what everyone says. He will sing his entire ABC's and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and it's mainly "a ee ee ee ee ee agh, fa fa ee af ah ah ah". He tries so hard and it's ADORABLE. Anyways, Ian is a beast, Izacc is dramatic (but normally very articulate). Izacc went down one slide that went kind of fast, and couldn't catch himself in time, so he hit the gravel butt first and started BAWLING. Ian did the same thing a couple of minutes later, and just looked a little surprised, but then got totally proud of himself, and started yelling for everyone to watch him do it again. The funny part was when Ian came running over smiling and happy saying "Bug, bug!" and pointing to a slide, where Izacc was completely spread-eagle screaming "BUG BUG BUG BUG" and trying to spit on and yell at the bugs. Awesome 8.5 month preggo mom went to go save him, and reported back that there were three tiny bugs on the slide that she'd rescued him from. So funny. 

Well, I probably should prepare my Primary lesson now. I keep forgetting that that has to happen every bippin week. *Sigh*. 4.5 more days sans Matt.

Joyeaux Jeudi

I got the idea from my lovely friend Stephanie (thanks Steph) to make a Thankful Thursday post. It was partially because hers was all about her husband, and I bippin miss Matt Wright right now. And, ya know, it just seemed like a good idea. SO. A whole bunch of reasons I'm thankful for Matt.

1. Matt is kind of the funniest person on the planet. He is forever making me laugh, and making every person around him laugh, and making his entire family hysterical. Sometimes people don't understand, or want him to be "more mature" or something boring like that, but life with Matt is never boring. 
2. On our wedding day, (totally true story) Matt's lawyer told me that no two days with him would be the same. That has proven to be completely true. I am not a huge fan of boredom, or same old same old stuff, so this is a wonderful trait to me. Most of the time :-D
3. Matt really honestly truly cares for people. He is never fake, or indifferent, or two faced. He is such a sweet person, and can befriend and support people who I find insufferable. He is constantly teaching me about being a kinder person without saying anything. 
4. Matt is a talented guy. He really gets into things, to the point that he can't leave it alone until he's satisfied with the way it's done. And not like "I want to learn how to paint flowers better, so I'm going to practice for an hour each day until I'm happy with how they look." He is like "Umm, why do I need to eat/sleep/shower? I am learning how to play the guitar." He went from not being able to play a note, to being able to play almost any chord in less than a year. He would play until his fingers got so raw that they started peeling and interfered with the chords. I am kind of the opposite in this, and get kind of "eh" with just about anything after a while. I really hope our kids are more like him in this.
5. There are so many more reasons, so maybe this is "To be continued..." but Matt is my best friend ever, and makes me feel like I'm the most normal, intelligent, beautiful girl in the world. We have the best time together, and we have reached a point where, when we fight, neither of us want the other's feelings to be hurt, so we both work really hard to make it better, which just makes everything better. I can't believe that I get to be married to Matt Wright. It makes me so dang happy. 

Oh, and not only is he adorable...

 He also looks good in plaid (and, ya know, plays like a shredding hessian)...

Is adorable with children...

AND makes me laugh!!!!!

B's career

I got a new-ish job. Same people, different work. It's tolerable, but nowhere near as fun as being a nanny. We couldn't afford me being a nanny anymore, Dallin goes to school in the fall, and we needed benefits, so I had to quit :-( I'm over the new job, which has led me to contemplate "Things that would actually make money that B wouldn't mind doing on a regular basis". The job itself is ok. I'm the "Super helper" which basically means anyone can boss me around at any time, and I get paid lots of money to do it. There was a riff last week because one employee was hogging me. *sigh*. It's also micro-management central. But I'm really just over working lame jobs. So that has brought me to trying to realistically dream about the future. We've had tiny glimpses of our business being able to make enough money to support us, but for the time being, I am not putting all of my eggs in that basket. So here's what I would love/tolerate for the future.

-If money and age were not a problem, I would be a dancer. Since that is not looking viable, I took a Zumba class this semester, and it was amazing. My Zumba instructor, who I semi-worship, told me I should become an instructor. And don't worry, I wouldn't be a very good "Traditional Zumba" instructor. It'd be more like semi-choreographed Matt and B dance party moves. But that's not really a career in these parts, more like just a way to get paid to work out. So that would be a side job. And I will never do it in a neon sports bra with hoop earrings to Latin Techno. More like plaid leg warmers and a Flashdance style sweatshirt to Flogging Molly.

-This is just funny/sad. I recently got bullied into becoming a Mary Kay consultant. BEFORE YOU JUDGE ME, hear me out. My skin had hit rock bottom. It depressed me every time I looked in the mirror. It was distracting to Matt. Everything I tried wasn't working, and I tried SO MANY things. Matt and I decided that I could invest in some good skin care stuff, and my friend, the consultant, called me to tell me Mary Kay was half off, so I decided to try their stuff. It worked, and has continued to work. But she wasn't happy with just selling me stuff, and I'm terrible at saying "Back off!!". So, many details omitted later, it turns out that in April the starter kit was $50 instead of $100, and it had a few hundred dollars worth of "product" in it, including the entire skin care line I've been using, some nice mascara/foundation, etc. I went for it, nicely told her to get off my back, and have since been giving away all of the extra product (Bronze #5 anyone?) and throwing away the startling amount of propaganda that they've been sending me. I will never ever ever go forward with this because the very thought of being pushy makes me want to curl up in a corner and die. I'm much more of a Ben than a Dan :-)

Oh, this is also funny/sad. I've been measuring all of my future careers based on 2 things; Would my mother want to do it, and will it be a useful skill when the end of the world comes. Really great benchmarks, I know. If my mother would like it, it's out of the question. That's why the two at the top of the list are interior design (which my mother would hate, it's too impractical) and accounting (the one form of math that I'm good at and my mother hates). I would love to make everything more beautiful and efficient, but really, how useful is that going to be in a post-apocolyptic world? And accounting, I really wouldn't mind as long as I didn't have to work with too many stupid people. That's another benchmark; How many stupid people would I have to deal with on a regular basis.

-I still have a scholarship that I could activate in order to attend the University of Wyoming for close to nothing, and I looked and there is an accounting program online, whereas all of the interior design stuff is far away/expensive. I've already missed the registration deadline for the fall, but for the time being (i.e. the next 2 weeks) I am going to go forward with hopes of getting a degree in accounting.

That felt good to get out of my head.