a goal.

i've been nostalgic lately. life changes so quickly, and all of the sudden i'm twenty four years old and looking around and saying wait a second... how did i get here? i wish i'd documented more. taken more photos. written more stories. but i never feel like i have enough time. so i have a new goal. i'm going to take fifteen minutes to write something everyday. even if it means ending mid-sentence to get back to the eighty-seven other things on my teux-deux list (so many hyphens. probably too many).

on friday night mike was up at youth conference. he's really the perfect person to be working with the fourteen year olds. since he was gone, i stayed late at school and then headed over to my parents to watch a movie. which means i fell asleep at nine and woke up an hour later to a downton abbey marathon. my parents have great taste in tv. naturally i started re-watching the rest of season one with them. until midnight. then one o'clock. then two. at two, my mom caved and went to bed. but my dad stayed up with me and we kept watching until five. five. it was so amazing. i really love my parents. (in high school my mom and all my sisters were obsessed with gilmore girls. the new episodes aired every tuesday night, and if we didn't watch it tuesday she would call us as we drove to school on wednesday and tell us to turn around to come watch it with her. best parents.) and then after my dad went to bed at five i went home and showered, grabbed a bowl of cereal and some girl scout cookies and headed back to school.

oh, school. we are so close to graduating. mike's been busy, i've been busy, and as excited as we are to reaching the finish line, i'm also getting a little bit sad. i'm going to miss my projects, my class, and my professors. i wish everyone could go through the bfa.

i ordered six boxes of girl scout cookies. they reside by our bed (my side of course) and greet me happily every morning. two thin mints, one samoa. favorite new breakfast.

the neon has a new trick. if i lift my foot off the brake just right when it's idling at an intersection it dies. dead. gone. the first time it was a little surprising, but now that it's happened a few more times it's made me a much more attentive driver. keeps you on your toes.

for about three hours last friday we reached our new savings goal. it was so exciting. but we only met it by about $6 so when we had to buy gas later we dipped below it again. but still. dave ramsey would be so proud. and then he would probably tell us to buy bikes to save gas money. problematic, since mike doesn't let me ride a bike. too fearful of other's safety.

sugar makes the world go round.

my iphone alarms for this week.
so
very
sleepy.
and so much to do.

boomerang kids

free labor summer: the sequel.

i know i talk a lot about myself (or just a lot in general. my poor family. they usually hear every story four to ten times. ten times only if i start with one person and then they keep trickling in so i keep re-telling. we've got lots of people around, and naturally in my mind they all have a burning need to know what's going on in my life at all times).

but let's talk about mike. because he is awesome. and people like y&r (the ad agency, not the young and the restless. although he would make an especially attractive soap opera star... italian style) want him to intern for them this summer. so we're going back! i can taste the coco helado already.

and the crazy thing about it this time around is... we don't really have a timeframe. we could go and stay. or become vagabonds. or move to milwaukee. or join occupy wall street. or join a circus.  nope. we would never do that. i started reading water for elephants. not happening.

we're almost going to be grown ups. and we both have semi-real professions. next step: get brave enough to order pizza over the phone.

updating-ness

i've had glorious visions of real posts with real pictures backtracking all the way to the middle of last october. the reality is, my fancy teux-deux list has a never ending stream of items that magically reproduce and have babies when i turn my back for one second. but i'm on my "get things done NOW" sleep schedule (ten - three) i just ate a giant chocolate chip cookie with my second bowl of cheerios and i'm in a writing mood.

things have been chaotic lately. in every aspect. towards the middle-endish of november we had a lesson in relief society about trials. the gist of it was about having our perspectives widened and gaining more thorough knowledge after experiencing things that are hard for us. and i sat in my chair and i nodded my head and i thought 'yeah! go trials! we need them!' and  then of course we got some bad news. followed by more bad news. followed by really bad news. oh life, you're so fun sometimes.

we are in our last semester at byu. double-april-graduation! apparently this has caused my mind a lot of subconscious stress. i have recurring dreams about not actually being able to graduate. they range from failing classes (rational) to my boat (?) not making it on time to hand in paperwork for the required and quite large, seuss-esque graduation hat (clearly i'm watching too much toddlers and tiaras. it's tainting my expectations).

which means that come april our lives are a giant, looming question mark. it feels like we're getting ready to jump off a cliff. only i think we will hold hands, which we wouldn't actually do if we were really jumpers, because mike informs me at least once a week that he has far superior survival skills. it's one of the reasons why i never make an appearance in his dreams (usually war-based); i die too fast.

my biggest hobby lately has been making the most random posters you can imagine. i thought i got a few oddball requests before, but it's nothing compared to the onslaught of the last three weeks. and it all started with this print that i made for a couple i sponsored (the best in the world! they really are my favorites i've ever worked with) that was an inside joke to them.

 i didn't know they were going to post about it, but once it launched into cyberspace i knew i was done for. in one day, i had fifty requests for custom posters. i usually average 10-15 a week. so.... it was quite the jump. and it hasn't slowed down since. (the most ironic part about it was that the post happened the day before the semester started, right as i was wrapping up the last few emails to have a cleared inbox for the first time ever. it's been fun though. loooooooots of work too). but the requests! i'll have to do a separate post. there are just too many.

and then there's mike. the source of all sanity. i think i'm driving him crazy with all my what ifs? about our future, but as one of my friends put it the other day "he's a very patient man" who puts up with all the shenanigans and craziness. i remember when people would tell us when we got married "oh, just wait a few years, then you'll really love them" and i thought they were super naive because obviously we were THE MOST in love couple in the world and we'd already dated for years and clearly they were never as in love as we were (everyone else also felt this way, right?) but those people really knew what they were talking about. go figure.

enough rambling. off to work.

my life, according to mike.

helping out

per my post last night, if anyone is able to help there is a donation fund set up for the triplets. you can email  nicolezwerin(at)yahoo(dot)com for the address if you would like to send a check to nicole (the friend who requested the print), or a Paypal donation can be sent to her at that email. if you would like to donate some other way please email her. so far they have been able to raise $4300 for the babies and any other donations would be sincerely appreciated.


if you want to read more about meghan and see her adorable triplets you visit their blog at http://mbjmaybebaby.blogspot.com/.

sad, sad, sad

believe it or not, i am actually putting posts together about the missionary madness + wedding. coming soon.

until then... here's a sad story i just can't stop thinking about.

this week i got an email about doing a custom poster for someone whose friend had passed away kind of suddenly. it gets sadder. she left behind a husband and the cutest triplets that just had their first birthday a few weeks ago. this friend had been diagnosed with cancer five years before (three weeks after her wedding!) and had been battling it on and off. she wanted to do a print to hang in the nursery and remind the triplets of their brave and beautiful mom. the quote is christopher robin talking to winnie the pooh, and it sort of breaks my heart every time i read it.

cancer is the worst.