Best of the best

This is my friend Lenor.

She moved to Oregon.

So if you live in the Medford area and what to meet one of the coolest people on the planet--let me know.

For real.

xoxoxo to you Nor

Miss you

(and I finally just went through your pics today ***hanging head in shame** I'll get them to you . . . eventually)

psssst you should use this as your profile pic.

The Reveal

So you may have seen on my Twitter that we got our house painted.

I LOVE IT!

It seriously has made all the difference in my happiness. Our house was U.G.L.Y. on the outside but all new and remodeled on the inside. We have been waiting to paint it, and waiting, and waiting. Now that we got a new roof and a new back porch built (due to a microburst--thank you Allstate) we had to get it painted. The porch had to be painted anyway, so we found the money to paint the whole thing.

Seriously--our house was ugly. I used to say it the base color was Arizona dirt, trimmed in Wet Arizona dirt. See:



In fact, Annabelle told Hyrum that our house looked like it was haunted.

We had to get a new garage door because our other one broke. And then we had my friend's brother do new trim around the front of our house and door. He did such a fab job. It really adds to the awesomeness.

Finding a house paint color was hard. We wanted Gray. Guess what--there are purple grays, and blue grays and green grays and brown grays. And the gray you pick out that seems perfect--will look blue on a board that you paint. We ended up going with a brown/green toned gray. I think it was the 4th one we picked. I think we tried 6. Note to anyone painting their house in the near future: Go to Home Depot--get a giant board and have them cut it into three big pieces, and then get the $3 sample paint colors and paint them. Then put them against your house and look at them in all kinds of light. You will be amazed at how different it can look. Do the same for your door color--if you are doing a different color door. And keep finding samples until you are happy--because that is much cheaper than having the painter change colors.

I want to give a big fat slobbery kiss to my friend Nicole who picked out our door color. I absolutely love it.

Anyhoodles

and now . . . the REVEAL!





My friend Darcy suggested this idea--and Hyrum made it happen



We thought it would be fun to do the side door as well:



And this shot is for Ian--who helped Hyrum trim out this door:



All of the colors were Benjamin Moore that we got matched at Home Depot:

House: Desert Twilight

Trim: White Wisp

Door: Blue Lagoon

Our awesome painter--the crew did an awesome job was Dave Mahaffey 480-626-3691

And the Garage Door guy was awesome too, we've used him twice: Diamond Garage Door.

Seriously--I now love to leave the house just so I can come back. I can't believe this is my house. SO HAPPY.

Pintersting

It is truly. It's the coolest site ever.

You know how I often post things I want---clothes, crafts to do, randomly cool stuff.

Well Pinterest has made it easier for me, so I just may never post that stuff on here again.

What is Pinterest?

Think of it as categorized idea boards that show a picture of what you love and a link.

And you can watch other people's boards. And there are some coolio people out there.

I linked through my twitter account, but you can do facebook also. I think I'm "littlejill".

I warn you, it's addicting.

See this following picture--it's of people I follow, some random things from their boards.




Cool right?

So sign up. It's easy. And once you get the hang of it you'll love it.

Promise.

Oh and for Cami, Tiffany and I'm sure soon Lindsay . .. I have a board that is Titled "For my Talented Friends" and this is where i post stuff that you guys could do or might like. I"m sure I'll be posting stuff for other friends soon--that is just who I think of now.

So do it.

If you like cool stuff that is.

Free double ee

Don't you wish you could get a print like this for free?

Me TOO!!!

And my RAD-iculous friend Ashley hooked it up on her blog.

She has some other cute ones too!

GO HERE.

Thanks Ash!

Sunday Message

As I was preparing for Primary today I came across this on LDS.org

It was great--because I have a great admiration for the Military and WWII vets.



Then if you want to watch a warm, happy video that will bring a slight tear to your eye. Try this one.

It's Official

em·ploy
/ɛmˈplɔɪ/ Show Spelled[em-ploi] Show IPA
–verb (used with object)

1.to hire or engage the services of (a person or persons); provide employment for; have or keep in one's service: This factory employs thousands of people.

He got a job.

At his hospital.

Starts in two weeks.

Super excited.

Do you know what this means?!

Day 1

It's Day 1.

Breakfast is going to be the hardest. Have you ever realized how breakfast is based on sugar? Yikes. Even my healthy granola has sugar on it. Booo.

Anyhow--just a note to my friends that I publicly pressured to join me.

None of your vices today. Or for the next 6 weeks.

BWWWWAAAAAAAAHHHHAAAAHHHAAA

Lent with me

Remember last year when I was Vegetarian for Lent? I did that because my end goal was to change my diet permenantly and make it to where I was eating meat only a few times a week. And it worked. It really made me change my thinking.

So what do I want to change in my diet now? Sugar. Refined sugar.

There is NO WAY I could go weeks without sweets. But I could go without refined sugars. I want to replace those with more natural alternatives that don't spike your blood sugars like they do.

So no sugar, no brown sugar, no high fructose corn syrup and no other things of the sort.

So on to alterntatives. Stevia, blue agavae and whatever else I can eat. I will be doing some research and I'll let you know.

So i challenged my group of buddies to join with me in Lent. If you know them you should ask them what they are giving up.

Sheri Denton, Marlo Lundell, Ashley Rogers, Molly Decrow, Cami Wright, Cicily Bowles, Kizzy Karas, Lindsay Jones (although technically she wasn't there that night)

So I challenge any of you---what is it that you want to change about your diet? Try it with me for Lent.

Thing is. Today is Fat Tuesday. The last day you can indulge and then tomorrow.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Let's do this.

My brain is busy and random

As I was cleaning my bathroom I thought--if I had to eat off someones bathroom floor as a dare--whose would it be?

I came up with these:

#1 My mother in law. Often when I am drinking a glass of water at her house--i set it down and when I go back to take another swig--it's missing. Her floors are meticulous--actually everything is. I'd pretty much eat off of every surface of her house.

#2 Cicily. This is my friend who is an avid cleaner. I send her into fits of hives when I post pictures of my crap piles because she can't figure out how anyone could accumulate that much crap on her floor.

#3 Sheri. My friend who is also an avid cleaner. I like when she comes over during parties because she just starts cleaning and doesn't even notice she's doing it. The only reason she's not tied for #2 is that Cicily has 1 kid and Sheri has 5. Sheer numbers.

And randomly if i had to eat out of anyone's bathtub it would be my mothers. It's always squeaky clean.

So this is how my brain works while I am cleaning.

Random right?

Nine

This is what nine looks like at 7 a.m.

This could have been a depressing post

This could have been a depressing post. I thought of a few titles over the last few days:

Hugging a little tighter
That story mothers have
Still here.
Borrowed time.

All mothers . . I guess parents, have a story about their kids. That story of almost. My parents have a few of my brothers who were so sick with croup they sat in an oxygen tent, and my parents just waited for daylight at the hospital because when the sun came up for some reason--my brothers could breathe.

I have a friend that tells of how the longest 20 minutes of her life was when one of her twins wandered off in the mall and couldn't be found.

The contractor that just finished my porch just told me his story of his 8 week old who was turning blue and then was hospitalized for a week with RSV.

I didn't have one of those stories. I never wanted one. But I knew one would happen. And I just hoped it would be almost.

And it was.

On my husbands birthday we did what many people do--we hit up the local free food joints. So we loaded the car up and headed to Joe's Farm Grill for Hyrum's free meal. And we took the kids because it has this outside fenced off back area with picnic tables and a good sized lawn for the kids to play. We got our stuff and sat down and ate--and were joined by his brother and his wife and daughter. The kids were running around, and i had my eye on them. NO biggie. Beck kept running toward the fence which is by a major road and then just looking back at us--taunting. This kid is a runner. When the front door opens--he runs. fast. straight to the middle of the street. It's scary. So I keep the door latched with a metal chain up high--and watch him like a hawk. So we are eating and he is running around and I am not taking my eye off of him. Then he ducks under the fence that borders a coffee shop. No biggie. (I am shaking while writing this with sweaty hands because it was that traumatic to me) It has a front lawn as well. So I turn to my left and tell my 8 year old to go get her brother. And then she yells, "Beck". And that signals him to run--because it's a game. And he runs--not toward the safe coffee house, or even the opposite way from her. He turns left and runs straight for the street. I hadn't noticed that there was an arch right there on his left, and open entry way--that part was blocked in my view by a tree.

So he runs.

And Hyrum who is sitting by me runs.

And I mutter . . . oh shit . .. oh shit .. and then louder OH SHIT!

And then I scream.

A primal mothering scream. I remember thinking that if I screamed maybe the people in the car would hear and stop.

And he ran right into the street.

Right in front of a car.

And it braked and laid on its horn.

And Hyrum swiped him off the street.

We were lucky.

The car stopped a few feet away from him.

It's 25 mph on that street. And they were all just accelerating from the light which was about 30 yards away.

I sat down and looked over at my sister-in-law whose eyes were welled up with tears, and I cried. Slowly, not loud, just quietly wiping tears.

It was scary. Too scary.

Hyrum carried him directly to the car and clipped him in. And disciplined him on the way.

Lunch was over. We grabbed the flip flops that were around and headed to the car.

And I tears fell from my eyes--for about an hour.

I did what every mom does. I play through the worst case scenario--even though the best case scenario happened. I imagined him gone. And I cried.

We went to the outdoor mall directly afterward, to get a new mouse for the computer. And we stopped while my husband ran our 6 year old into the bathroom. My 8 year old got out of her seatbelt, and hung over the front seat and said,

"I unclicked. I wanted to hug Beck. . . . . I don't ever want to talk about this again."

And I looked in my rearview mirror and she was just snuggled chest to chest with him while he was safe in his carseat.

I knew what she felt. I wanted to do that too.

Those two have a special relationship and that day could have crushed her. And me. And my poor husband on his birthday of all days.

See. This could be a depressing post.

It's scary. And tears are dropping down as I write this. But it's not depressing.

It's now my almost story.