Brownie Updates

Brownie Updates
this is the life

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Exhuastion

I am so exhausted by the end of the week. One problem is that we have early morning basketball on Mondays at 5:30am. Who wants to start work that early on a Monday? Not this girl. Then the week just seems to take off from there. I am busy, but when I see all that I an accomplish I realize I am also very productive. Somehow this week I fit in a couple visits to see Miss Millie and family. She is so beautiful.
Jana is so nice to let me snuggle her. I also actually had time to sew a quilt too. No small task.

 I just feel so tired. It is getting better now that the weather has cooled off but really I need to give myself a real weekend. I definitely didn't do that this weekend. I tried to sleep in Saturday, that lasted until 7:30am. I then started cleaning and touching up paint. I worked until it was time to go can jam. it was a busy day but so fun.

I have so many good people in my life. My Utah family are some of those people. Loralie was so nice to donate peaches, time, and expertise so I could learn to can. Raspberry peach jam was the outcome and it was delicious.
 Nancy and Loralie showed up as twinners...so cute.

I can see why I have bought jam in the past. Canning is hard work. I am really glad I was able to learn and I had lots of fun doing it. There are always good laughs when I am with family.
 I only made one HUGE mess. I didn't hold the top of the blender on tight enough and it blew up all over the kitchen. That was towards the end of the night so I blame it on being tired. Canning FAIL for sure. The jam is delicious in my very biased opinion.

For good measure Moki and I hiked the Y three times this week to show our spirit. She has become pro at using water fountains. I am not sure that is a good thing but it works.
 We also sported our BYU clothing.
 It didn't help. To be honest I was so tired I went to bed before the game ended. That is sad but when I saw the outcome this morning I felt great about my choice. I will say our 9am sacrament meeting was sparse today. I think there were lots of people up really late last night.

This evening my Mom's brother Mike and his wife Linda had us over for dinner. It was so fun. It was so great to visit with family and catch up. I have been tired all day but I am really glad I went. Moki got to meet a bunny for the first time. She was extremely curious and equally fascinated.
She hopped right over the fence to enjoy the little guy.

We ended the night by playing Headsups around a camp fire. It is a group game you play with your phone, like headbands. So fun. We laughed a lot!!!!! My cousin Ashley introduced it to us. This week I am just so grateful for all the good people in my life. I am so blessed.


Sunday, September 15, 2013

Fast Forward Pace

 I feel like life is in fast forward at the beginning of the school year. I just feel exhausted and so behind on everything. The first week of school I have to get used to talking all day and being on my feet all day. The 2nd week of school I have to add doing random boughts of fitness because it is fitness testing everyday and I try to do a lot of it with my students. The third week we go outside and I have to get used to being in the sun, on my feet, and talking all day. Exhausting. We just finished the 4th week of school and I am finally feeling normal again. I didn't take a nap three days this week. That is really good for me.

Here is a selfie a couple of Sundays ago. I was excited about my hair. My hair that is falling out like crazy.
Here is another selfie......at the doctor. Well waiting for the doctor. I was in my gown in the room waiting for sometime and I thought really, next time I would just rather put the gown with no back on in front of the doctor when she finally gets in here.
 We talked about my crazy thinning hair and some tests are being run because it is driving me CRAZY!!!!!! I have also had a few other health concerns so hopefully I can figure out what is going on.

I painted one of my spare bedrooms. Here are the before pictures.
 My entire house was this tan color when I moved in. Even the ceilings. I think I have vented about this before but who paints the ceilings tan????
 That is a blurry picture.
 So I knew I wanted to make this bedroom the TV room. My house is so small that I don't love having the TV downstairs because it monopolizes everything down there if it is on. So I needed a TV room. I knew I wanted it to either be American themed or bike themed. Both cute, but I went with biked theme. I LOVE IT!!!! It is not done but it is well on the way.
The color is sterling. Which is a light grey with a blue tint. More blue than I was anticipating but I am really happy with the color.
 I got a new couch and a new TV. Did I mention it was not a cheap remodel?
 The first couch I picked out would not fit in the room. I was really sad. And embarrassed that the delivery men had to haul it up all those stairs and then back down. Just a little awkward. But this couch works. It is not nearly as comfortable but it is a futon and I really like it. I ordered some bike material online yesterday so there will be some very cute pillows soon.
 I still have some bike pictures to put on the shelf. There is also a couple of places where the painters tape pulled some paint off so I need to do some touch ups, but it is looking so good.
 It is a little ridiculous but I get really happy when I go in the room. It is so clean and bright. It brings peace to my soul:)

I tried a new cookie recipe. It was delicious. It was peanut butter chocolate chip.
My hang up with peanut butter cookies is that they are always hard and there is no chocolate. These ones were soft and had chocolate so it was a win win.

Anthony moved to Provo. It has been fun to have him around.
 Erica came to visit. I got to see her for like 10 minutes. Working stinks sometimes! I love this picture. Jana looks so cute.
 Andrew loves to explore my house. He is learning to master the doggie door.
 He also likes to check out Moki's crate. He was not so sure about it when I closed the door.
 I bought two new Luv sacks on KSL. One for the downstairs and one for the TV room (Katie is now ready to take hers to her house, bummer). I got a great deal and they are like new. The covers were both the exact colors I needed to match the decor in my rooms. In order to fit them in the car we had to break down Moki's cage. She was pretty cramped. It was really funny and she is just pretty cute.
 Jana had her baby. Little Miss Millie. She is so adorable. Looks just like a Ben and Jana baby. I love getting to snuggle on my friends new borns.
 Moki thinks my bed is hers. It is a problem. She kills me.
 Last week I came home from work really late, like close to 6, and she had emptied the entire dish drainer and put the dishes all throughout the house. Nothing was broken but there were different things in each room. I had my own little scavenger hunt when I got home.

Here she is looking out the back window at the neighbors dog. Probably wishing they could play.
It has been the craziest summer with thunderstorms. I feel like it has rained every single day. That is a little exaggeration but it has rained a lot of days and then it stops and it is sunny again. There have been some amazing clouds in the sky. I have loved that. This panorama is from the Y parking lot. To the left it was sunny, in the middle there was a thunderstorm, and then to the right it was sunny. (I stopped before I got the couple totally making out in the gray car. I was like HELLO it is daylight and there are tons of people around.)
A good representation of the weather the past month.

Today was the first time I have taught in young womens. I was really nervous. I was super sweaty after. I knew I would be so I planned my outfit accordingly. I am always surprised at how much I sweat in those situations. It is gross. I love being in young womens. Wednesdays are super CRAZY for me right now. I am not home from 6:45am until mutual ends usually after 9pm. I just go go go. I am always stressed when I think about it beforehand but this last Wednesday after I had dropped the girls off at home I was just happy. We have great girls. They are fun to be around and it is a great opportunity for me to use use the talents I have been blessed with and to also work on things I need to improve on. It definitely keeps me on my toes. It has also been a great way to get to know some sisters in the ward better. Something I needed and I really think the Lord knew I needed it to. I am already seeing the blessings.

Audrey's Dance Recital

 How do you win the hearts of all the Brown's? Have the cutest niece ever perform in a dance recital. It was so fun to watch Audreys lit...