The Beast

My "Lindy" has now turned into "The Beast." Last week my friend Jillian came over to help me start this thing. She's been dabbling in faux finishing and offered to help. Little did I realize that the massive wooden piece that I had obtained would require sanding. On top of that, I never knew how much time it takes to sand something. Lets just say that Jillian and I spent our whole day sanding just the exterior walls of the thing. We applied one coat of paint (which only took 15 minutes and that's supposed to be the fun part!) and then Jillian left. That means I spend the rest of my weekend sanding the doors and painting the inside and the rest of the outside. Luckily Ben snapped this oh so insanely attractive picture of me sanding in my "faux clothes." Good thing I didn't make Jillian do all of the sanding with me or she probably wouldn't have volunteered to come over tomorrow to start the "faux" part. Wish me luck!

P.S.

I want to be like Grace Kelly....

Off-Roading Machine

Camping was awesome... I'm still waiting on Sara, aka Scarlet the Harlot aka Maggie Pie, to email me the pictures. After a lot of craziness we finally got out to the camp site late on Friday night. While the boys scoped everything out, Sara and I sat in the car with Ben's brother's girlfriend, Christina and her daughter Olivia (cutest little girl in the world!!!). I'm so glad that I got to spend the little bit of time I did with them and get to know Christina better. I totally was awesome too the Olivia fell asleep on me (even though she was in an insanely awkward position and seemed to love it). Christina is legit and I really love her.

I'm so grateful that Sara brought me the most glorious of all sleeping bags so I was super cozy all night. Probably one of the best nights rest I have had in a long time and I totally wasn't freezing despite the 42 degree weather. The next morning we all made left over hobos and eggs for breakfast (which turned into brunch and then lunch). After all of the breakfast shennanigans, we adventured on to the more epic part of the trip; Off-roading! Surprisingly, Ben let me and Sara go nuts with his Jeep in the sandy dunes of the sand pits. I was so proud of myself when Sara got us stuck in the sand and no boys were around and I got us out of it! All of the times I have gone mudding with Ben I guess I was learning at the same time. this is all that I had learned that helped get Sara and I and the Jeep unstuck (multiple times):

1. If your tires are still moving you're not stuck.

2. Switch between reverse and drive while moving the tires slightly to help get you unstuck.

3. Always keep it in 2 wheel drive (4 wheel drive is a last resort).

4. If ll else fails, switch it into 4 high and you pretty much can get out of anything with that beast of a Jeep!

5. You will never ever have to use 4 low, well, because the Jeep is legit.

I was so excited by my awesome getting us un-stuckness that I made Sara drive back so we could pick up Ben and show him the awesome ruts we made in the sand!

Pretty much the entire trip was amazing and I had a blast. I really hope Ben did since it was kind of his birthday party (Ben doesn't like birthdays. That was sooo hard for me to not make a big deal out of his birthday). By the way, Ben is 27 now. He seems to think that is old and I totally don't. If he's old then he sure is aging well. It did freak me out for like .2 seconds when he said, "Kaylee, I'm almost 30." Since I just turned 21, I decided that makes him Hugh Hefner. Which totally makes me a playboy bunny.......... or not. Anyhoo... pictures to come once Sara finally decides that it is more important to send me pictures after a 12 hour day than sleeping.

A "Lindy."

I pulled a Lindy on Friday. Enough said.

As I was driving into Ben's neighborhood on his birthday/camp out adventure day, I noticed a pile of garbage. Ever since Lindy posted about her being the "garbage lady" I always look at other's trash piles as "Lindy piles" and try to see if anything in them is worth stopping over. Most times it is hard to tell because I'm zooming by so quickly (speaking of zooming quickly, did you know that the cops can clock you from the air now?! I do. It resulted in a $280 ticket). Not this time however. A massive armoire/entertainment center thing was in the garbage and an awesome chair. I pulled into Ben's house and from the car to the front door I yelled, "Amor amor amor amor!!!!!"(Ben's nickname). Ben came running out and I begged him to go grab it with be before anyone else did. We had to enlist Spencer in on it too because it is massive. I'm going to fab them up. Basically I have pulled a "lindy."

2011 Aspirations

A couple of months ago, our Bishopric had a combined Relief Society/Priesthood meeting and discussed five areas of our lives that we needed to actively seek improvement in.

I usually don't make any goals for the New Year because I almost always fail within the first month. I guess that goal was to not set myself up for failure that year. This year, however, I decided to follow my bishop's counsel.

Alas, my 2011 Aspirations:

Spiritual:

• Read a talk by a General Authority once a week.
• Study my scriptures and Teaching, No Greater Call every day
• Leave Sunday to truly be a day of rest (i.e. no school stuff and no week-day/strenuous activities)

Physical:

• Go to the gym 4 times a week, but make sure to exercise daily.
• Have a more healthy daily diet (i.e. actually eat a breakfast and don’t binge on sugar).
• Find a sport to become active in again.

Financial:

• Save $50 a pay period.
• Save up to have the Silver Bullet fixed or for a new car.
• Learn to determine a “need” from a “want.”

Educational:

• Get mostly A’s in my classes and nothing lower than a B.
• Build a relationship with each of my professors personally.
• Be almost done with my 2 Paralegal A.S. degrees and History A.A. degree.

Marriage:

• Start to really become the person I want to marry.
• Pray more earnestly to have my Savior’s help and guidance in making this important decision.
• Each month make or craft something for my future home.

I decided to add my own group in...

Personal:

• Blog at least once a week.
• Learn to make more meals.
• Try to hit up the temple once a month (even if it is just to study out on its lawn).

Let's see what I can actually get done this year!

Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy.

One of my New Years goals was to take way better care of my body. I am not a young and active kid anymore, so basically I cannot eat whatever I want whenever I want it anymore. To start off the healthier New Year, I decided to do a detox-diet so I could wash my system out. Basically, the way I see things, my insides are like what my bathroom sink’s plumbing is like, full of crap and junk after 21 years of abusing it. This detox-diet is supposed to be the Drain-O to my body’s inner pluming system.

I researched a lot about these diets and the one that kept coming up was the lemon juice and cayenne pepper drink. I knew that if I were to stick to something for three days I would actually need to seem like I was eating. That one was out. Then I stumbled upon a gem; the three day fruit diet! I love fruit. I have three days! Winner winner, no more chicken dinner.

Day 1:

Make a protein shake with water (not milk so you can confuse yourself into thinking it’s a milkshake) every two hours and drink it. Then in between the protein drinks drink a huge glass of water. You do this for five meals and then for your sixth meal you get 2 eggs 3 oz of lean meat and a salad (aka lettuce and a few sprinkled tomato pieces) with 1 teaspoon of olive oil for dressing. It was not so bad, until I went bowling with some girlfriends that night. Basically bowling ally food is my kind of food. Not eating the onion rings and fries and chicken tenders was torture!

I wanted this:

And got this:

Days 2 and 3:

Instead of protein shakes, you eat a serving of fresh organic fruit every two hours and then in between the fruit servings you drink one massive glass of water. You also get the same thing for dinner as day one. Ben and I went out to a movie on Saturday night for our date night because we would be avoiding food. I have now discovered that movie theatre food is also my kind of food! Nachos, hot dogs, POPCORN! We almost broke the diet for the popcorn.

I wanted this:

And I got this:

Needless to say, I completed the three days of food torture. The end results:

1. I lost the water weight.
2. I crave eggs and salad now.
3. I drink a ton more water.
4. I’m aware of my sick addiction to all things fried.
5. I feel accomplished because I actually stuck to it for three days despite many temptations!

Semester Review

You would think that with me having three weeks off of school that I would have got down to business and blogged since I pretty much had not because of being in school. Well, obviously I did not. I did get down to business- the business of relaxing and doing what I wanted with my free time that is!

I had a pretty great a redeeming semester. Here is a break down of my classes this semester.

Spanish 1 – HARDEST CLASS EVER! Seriously. I figured that since my boyfriend (novio) spoke fluent Spanish that it would be a breeze. Nope. Actually Spanish 1 only teaches you how to read and write Spanish. I can read it now, but no writing. I desperately want to learn it conversationally, but that’s not going to happen in a community college class room. After much hard work and lots of frustration, I got a B as my final grade in the class. The professor was pretty legit too. He always was willing to work with me and help me.

Intro to Paralegal Studies and Ethics – Pretty legit. I was kind of nervous at first. I thought I wasn’t going to like the program and was scared that I yet again picked a path of education that I did not want to venture down. I was wrong. I really liked it and the class was challenging, but I totally rocked it. My final grade was an A and the professor was awesome, although a lot of the class really didn’t like her teaching style (I totally did).

Human Biology – Can we say JOKE! I signed up for this class so I could have one night a week in class with Ben. What was supposed to be a 3 hour class turned out to be a 20 minute one each week, if it even happened at all. Our professor is a doctor who owns his own practice so he tended to not really care about teaching. He would breeze through his lessons and let us leave. We only had three grades in that class too: 1 Project (I got an A), 1 Midterm ( I got an 88 B) and the final (I got a 100 on). Please anyone, can you tell me how I ended up with a B in that class?!!!?! I was so ticked I called the professor and he told me he would change it. He still hasn’t.

Greek and Roman Humanities – Awesome. I love ancient history. My teacher was also ancient, but I adored her. My classmates were great to and we always had excellent discussions. I got all A’s on all of my exams and papers and projects so I came out with an A in the class. I was stoked to say the least. Plus my teacher told her I had some of the best papers she has ever read in her 40 something years of teaching. Suck that FSU!

One semester done at Valencia, 3 more to go until I get those 3 A.S./A.A. degrees. Now onto a semester full of Paralegal crap.

P.S. I totally think that no one reads this anymore :( Sad day.