10 easy steps to make your blog cute

This is mainly for Mom, because she asked, but anyone else can use this too.

What I did for MTB's blog is:
1. go to thecutestblogontheblock.com.
2. sign into your blog in another window.
3. pick out a background that you want on said website.
4. go to "layout" on your blog.
5. in "add and arrange page elements," go to "add gadget" (at the side of the page).
6. click on "add Javascript/html"
7. at thecutestblogontheblock.com, click on the background you want. There will be an html code below the instructions. Highlight and copy the html code.
8. paste the html code on the "add Javascript/html" window.
9. click "save."
10. now you have a new background for your blog!

Note: before you do this you need to make sure that the template for your blog (under Layout--> pick new template) is Minima. These steps also won't guarantee you a cute header-- I make those in Photoshop.

Why Brandon hates cats

Aren't these little faces just adorable? Well, they're nothing but trouble, according to Brandon. He has gone through no less than 50 cats in his life (the big cat has 4-5 kittens in each litter, and she gives birth about every 6 months.) His family manages to give away most of the kittens, but as you will soon see, they have a much worse track record with animals (not just cats) than we do. If you think that every pet's dream is living on a big open farm, you're wrong. They live on 2.5 fenceless acres and most of their pets suffer very violent deaths.

One of his cats and one of his dogs died by "bleeding out their butts." Brandon was supposed to shoot the cat but it got away and ended up dead on their porch a few days later. A few of his dogs either ran away or were run over. One puppy was run over by the lawn mower (luckily it was the tire, not the blade.) Two kittens crawled into the sawdust vaccuum tube and got stuck there. They came sliding out a couple of months later. One kitten had its leg bitten almost off by a dog-- Cameron and Mia had fun picking out the maggots after that happened. Gross. But Brandon's favorite story is about his cousin's puppy Fluffy. It was stupid and liked to chase cars. It got caught under the wheel of a car it was chasing and was tossed up in the air by the motion of the wheel. On its way down it was hit again by an oncoming car.

Any animal lucky enough to escape death then has to face Mia-- at least until they're too old to be cute.

And if Brother thinks that Alice's peeing in his suitcase is bad, imagine having your cat give birth on the foot of your bed. That happened to Cameron a few months ago. Brandon was lucky enough to have the cats give birth under his bed. He also had to rescue a couple of litters out of the attic.

Their cats could be unusually generous, though. One Christmas morning they went outside to find that their cat had killed about 50 mice and placed them ont he floor by the car. Apparently it kept it up for about a week, so they would find a new peace offering every morning. It also used to disembowel mice and neatly line up the entrails on the doorstep.

Don't feel bad, mom. Any of these animals would have loved to stay at our house. With this said, I think I can guess that Brandon and I will never own any cats. He has had a few too many give birth on his watch.

Why Brandon's family is cool:

They had extra condo points so they booked us a condo in Midway for a weekend in November.

6 random things about Brandon

Since Brandon won't post 6 random things about himself, I'm doing it for him. I'll forgo posting the rules and tagging people since he doesn't even have 3 blogger friends to tag. Here goes:

1. He played soccer in high school and his nickname was "the destroyer" because he sent more players off the field than anyone else on the team. He got a yellow card for kicking another player in the face, and another for kicking a kid in the stomach (they were in the way of the ball).

2. His favorite food is shrimp. He once went to the Sizzler and got the steak and shrimp combo which comes with endless shrimp. He ate the entire steak plus more than 100 shrimp.

3. He loves to correct people. He has already corrected me numerous times on this post. He claims that I tell his stories wrong. Now he is saying, "Claims? I think it's a pretty fair claim."

4. He is a great artist. He is the only person in his school's history to have gotten two 5's on the AP art exams. He draws pretty weird things too, such as a woman in a crocodile costume, his cousin in a sombrero and poncho shooting a rifle, and a menacing blue face.

5. He hates buying things for himself, but he doesn't mind spending money on me. Yesterday we went shopping and he told me to buy just about everything I looked at. He once convinced me to buy a dress just so that I could wear it on a date with him. The summer before we were engaged we went out to eat at least three times a week. It was awesome.

6. He also loves to snowboard. When I was in Mexico he sent me a video of him doing jumps. He claims it was a terrible video, but he looked extremely crazy in it. He even used to go snowboarding in shorts occasionally.

Lucky day

Apparently yesterday was my lucky day. Every once in awhile I have those, and they're awesome. First, work was really slow and Brandon came to visit me, so I got to do nothing but talk to him and scoop honey butter for 30 minutes. Then, the guy that usually comes in late and makes me stay late for work came in on time and told me that he would just try to "hold it" until his shift was over so that I could go home. (He has OCD, so his bathroom breaks are about 45 minutes long. I would have had to stay 45 minutes over my shift.) Then, I found out that my new generic perscription is $47 cheaper than my old one, so now Brandon and I can afford to go on dates. And finally I stumbled upon a cute way to do my hair that's really easy. I love lucky days.

Tagged again! How fun.

Rules:
Link to the person who tagged you: Poodle
Post the rules on your blog
Write six random things about yourself
Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I dye the underside of my hair brown to add contrast to my hair.

2. I sleep much better since I've been married, except when Brandon talks in his sleep. Then I try to stay awake and listen to him because it's funny.

3. I am convinced that my kids will be the most photographed people in the world, because I LOVE my camera.

4. I want lots of pets. I almost took home one of Brandon's cats. He convinced me that it wasn't a good idea. Thanks, frontal lobes.

5. When I was a teenager, I went through a phase where I was mad at everything and sulked in my room most of the time.

6. I worry that when Brandon starts making money, I will spend it all. I've already started a mental list of things we need to get when he gets a real job. I could go crazy.

I tag Brandon, Landon Wiest, and BROTHER!!!

Ashley, the sweet spirit

I had forgotten about how nice Ashley is until she came back to BYU last week. The first thing she said to me when she saw me was this:
Wow, you look so skinny. I thought you'd get fat after you got married.

She is also so accepting of everone she meets. She would never stereotype anyone. Like when she met Meagan's boyfriend for the first time and we had this conversation:
Ashley: You're a lot cooler than I thought you'd be. I figured you'd be a dorky BYU boy. You know, one of those overly perky returned missionaries.
Me: Ummm... he doesn't even go to BYU.

Or this conversation:
Me (seeing a commercial on TV) : That girl looks like the Cougareat secretary.
Ashley: Yeah she does.
Me: You've never even met the cougareat secretary.
Ashley: I know, but that girl looks like a BYU girl, so she has to look like the Cougareat secretary.
Me: So now all short girls with brown hair are "BYU girls?"

I know a short girl with brown hair that went to BYU. She's very perky, and she's a returned missionary. Ashley, you're a BYU girl. You might say that you don't miss BYU, but you sure fit the part. You dug this hole on your own.

I tagged myself

Your High School's full name: Ronald Reagan High School
mascot: rattlesnake. Although the bronze one outside always got its head and tail cut off so it looked more like a rope.
Did you date anyone from your school? Apparently a lot of guys thought they were dating me; I only admitted to dating 2.
What kind of car did you drive? red dented Corolla. I still drive it, and love it.
It's Friday night, where are you? Traipsing around, or grounded, or hanging out with mom.
Were you a party animal? No.
Were you considered a flirt? Yeah, hence the handful of guys that thought I was their girlfriend.
Were you in any clubs? Oh yeah. Art club, film club, JETS, Acedemic UIL, Spanish honors society, TSA, NHS (until they kicked me out for not attending meetings)
Did you ever get suspended or expelled? No, but I skipped a lot my senior year.
Can you still sing the fight song? I never could
Who were your favorite teachers? Sra. Frye (spanish), Mr. Ricketts (art), and Mr. Valderrama (history)
Where did you sit during lunch? Carrie or Jennifer. I sat with other people but I didn't like it.
With whom did you go to Homecoming? Jr. year- Matt, Sr. year- Marques
If you could go back and re-do High School, what would you do? I would have ditched most of my superficial friends and hung out with my mom more.
What do you remember about graduation? My friend from my government class yelled out "FEMA" when he saw me, because we once both yelled it out at the same time in class. After graduation mom, dad, brother, and I went out to Alexander's to eat and dad and brother talked about economics.
Do you plan on going to your 10 year reunion? No, that's what Facebook is for.

We are annoying.

That's right, Brandon and I are annoying. I wouldn't want to be our friend. Last night when we were watching the History channel, the narrator was talking about boulders deposited in Central Park during the ice age. He said that they had remained there for "eons." I looked at Brandon and said, "How long is an eon? I hear the term all the time but I doubt that anyone knows what it means." Apparently Brandon was wondering the same thing, so he looked it up. We found out that an eon covers a span of at least 500 million years (there have only been 4 eons in the history of the earth). Since the last ice age ended about 13,000 years ago, the narrator was way off. So we will probably never again let someone use the word "eon" without correcting them, because 95% of the time, it's not used correctly.

I wouldn't want to be our teacher, either. Well, we don't really give our teacher a hard time, we just make fun of her behind her back. She had us read an article about a geologist who dated the Sphinx to about 5,000 BC. Archaeologists, an opinionated bunch, think that it was built no earlier than 2,500 BC because they haven't found evidence for an earlier culture capable of building it. So our archaeology teacher ripped this article apart, saying that he failed to take the archaeological record into account and even telling us that the article was published in a science fiction magazine. But what she failed to take into account was the fact that all of his observations of erosion were pretty convincing, and since he's a geologist, basing his case on the archaeological record would have been pretty dumb. She also didn't tell us that he published the same case in a peer-reviewed science magazine. Instead of saying, "We haven't found enough arcaeological evidence for this, so he must be wrong," she should have said, "Erosion patterns indicate that it was built earlier, so the archaeological record must be incomplete. " As for me, I'll agree with the field that has the lesser amount of BS inherent, and that's geology.

Great classes

I really like my classes this semester. I'm only taking one Spanish class, and it's the Spanish-American Novel. What we do is read books, come to class, and talk about them. It's like book club in Spanish.

In my Mesoamerican Archaeology class, we're learning about the Olmecs. They were pretty weird. They liked carving statues of ugly human-jaguar babies.

My Astronomy class is just about the easiest class I've taken in college. Our final project is "our interpretation of astronomy." My teacher says he's had drawings, songs, and interpretive dances about the universe, and they all got A's. I'm going to paint some nebulas. The one above is Lagoon Nebula--it's my favorite one. I'm excited to do it, I just need to decide on a medium. Brandon's helping me with that.

Our marriage

For Sunday school Brandon and I have been going to the newlyweds class. Yesterday we were supposed to write down things that each of us brought to the relationship. I looked at Brandon's paper and he had written, "I bring the frontal lobes to the relationship. Shady brings the amygdala." I think he's been listening to Mom too much.

And for those who are wondering, Brandon does call me Shady-- quite possibly more often than he calls me Lindsey.

Dear Utah,

I couldn't be more happy with you this year. I was sorely disappointed last year when you selfishly withheld the entire fall season and went directly from summer into winter. You have done much better this year. The leaves are already beautiful. I'm looking forward to more cool weather.
Love, Shady

weird story

I have a weird story to tell. On Tuesday when I came into work, there was a Brick Oven bag on top of the pastry holder. A co-worker told me that it was for me; a wedding present. Someone had dropped it off at the office. I opened the bag and found a sushi kit, a book, and a card from Fern and Reed Peterson. It was a great gift. What I can't understand, though, is how Fern and Reed Peterson got the present to my work. Were they visiting? Did they have someone else drop it off? Had they recently been to Brick Oven? How did they know that I work there? How did they find the office? It confused me for the rest of the day.

I guess it's one of those stories that I'll never have an explanation for. Kind of like when I found a crab in my bathroom. But that's a story for another day.

wedding album, a few pages

Correction

Okay, fine. I only took one of those pictures, and only a couple more of them were actually my idea (although Brandon had the same idea so he would have taken them anyways). Most of my pictures only made it to the semi-finals. As for the editing, Brandon did it and asked for my advice once in awhile. So I won't try to steal any more of Brandon's thunder. I am officially the less artistic one. But I still take credit for the idea for the project.

More, for Bethy.

Bethany,
These pictures are all on snapfish. You can get them in 11x14, 12x18, 16x20, and 20x30. Just let me know and I will crop them to the right dimensions. If not, then Snapfish crops them for you, and it sometimes messes up the picture.

more

The finalists (a few)

Brandon and I have two common interests: photography and National parks. Thanks to the camera that Mom gave us, we have been able to combine those two this summer. With a little photo editing, Brandon and I are starting a collection of black-and-white National Parks photos. Because of our budget and space constraints, we can only hang 12- 8x10 pictures on our wall. Here are some of the finalists. (Hint: click on the pics. They look much cooler in full size.)

Above: Craters of the Moon lava tube

Top left: Aspen trunks at Grand Teton

Bottom left: Wyoming sky and the Tetons

What's even more interesting is Brandon's idea for hanging them. Since we only get 2 nail holes per wall, Brandon came up with the idea of hanging a false wall (peice of plywood painted whatever color we want) and hanging the pictures on it. This will be cool.

Fernash, I'm planning on doing your blog on Monday.

Today I went hiking in my wedding dress

Just so that I could take this picture.

It's not the only one I have, though, so don't worry mom.

PS- Everyone go to Brandon's blog and congratulate him.

Why Education Week sucks

This week is Education Week at BYU. For those who have never experienced it, it's like EFY for adults. They can get a "Campus Guest" pass which gets them into all sorts of classes hosted by BYU professors and Mormon celebrities. From what I hear, it's really great for the attendants. However, it sucks for the poor students who have to work at the Cougareat during that week. The good thing is that I get lots of hours. I work 7 hours/day this week. If you're scooping ice cream, 7 hours is a very long time. It gets a bit overwhelming. Here are the reasons why I hate it:

a sore back and arms from scooping rock-hard ice cream.
women who ask for a large when you know they can't handle more than a small and tell you it's too big when they get it.
old men who complain about how expensive our ice cream is. (seriously, $1.89 is ridiculously cheap for what we give)
not being able to sleep because I keep having dreams about ice cream and customers
women who ask for "BYU brownies" but don't specify which of our 6 different kinds they want.
women who wave their money in the air when they want our attention. some day I'll tell them it's not an auction.
women who ask if we have any sugar-free ice cream. the name of our store is Sugar n' Spice-- one would think they'd figure it out.
shakes.