Tender!

True Love:

When Hod buys me a super cute polka-dotted cup with straw to aid me in my water drinking goals.

I love him.

A Few Pictures

As all ya'll know, I got married just over a month ago.  Our amazing photographer is still working on photoshopping our photos, but I thought I'd share a few of my favorite un-shopped photos.

It was an AMAZING day!  Thanks to everyone who helped.  You rock my knee highs!!

The Life of Mr & Mrs Bucket

Hello friends!

I'm back!  AND I'm married.  Yeah, weird.  Today I was able to stand up and introduce myself in my new ward.  It was really hard to remember my last name.  But married life is good.  I highly recommend it.  Here's a few highlights:

1.  On our wedding night (No, this story isn't going there... who do you think I am???)  Hod and I had a hard time adjusting to sleeping with another person.  Middle of the night, I was actually kicked out of bed.  There was a couch in our room so I ended up there.  Hod doesn't remember asking me to move, but I was totally bummed.  It got cold, so eventually I made him get over it and I got back in bed.  Now we can successfully sleep in the same bed without anyone getting kicked out.  Although, apparently I can be quite the aggressive cuddle-er.  Hod has learned that when I am sleeping and I want to cuddle, he better watch out :)  Oh, and can I just share, one of the best feelings in the WORLD is when you're asleep and then a handsome man rolls over just to put his arm around you and pull you close.  Sharing penalty?  Hope not, cause I love it!

2.  We are all sorts of moved in!  We really like our apartment, except for the lack of storage.  That is a bummer.  But we are figuring it out.  We hung up all of our art and we look all sorts of ritzy.  The sad part is, we are totally the normal poor newlyweds.  But we're happy in our poorness!

3.  I have successfully cooked twice for Hod now.  This morning I tried and failed.  I was making french toast.  Not a hard thing to make.  But I didn't notice that on my brand new pan there was some plastic around the handle.  It melted.  And it smelled really bad.  And we didn't think it was on the food till Hod started eating.  He's sweet and tried to be nice and eat it anyway.  I made him stop because I didn't want him to die.  I may have ruined a pan.  And I'm not happy about it.  But it was funny.

4.  I'm still looking for a job.  I don't really enjoy not having work.  Actually, it's driving me crazy!  But at least Hod has a job.  Some nights he's gone late for work and that totally whomps, but some income is good.

So thats my life.  Nothing too exciting to report.  But life is good.  I love Hod, and I am enjoying my life!!

The Beginning of All Things Ultimately Lame

Greetings fellow Bucket-eers.

If you check the countdown in my right hand side bar, you will see that I have just over 2 months before Hod and I will be married for eternity.  I am SO stinkin' excited.  I am also very attached.  Seriously.  Monday night, I had this horrible dream.  Hod died, and there was a bad man coming after me trying to do bad things.  It was no good and I woke up in a very foul mood.  Well, part of that was the dream, part of that was the fact that I was getting up so stinkin' early cause a girl at work quit, so I had to cover her shift, but it's also good, cause now Hod is working my shifts, and we get to work together, and now we may actually have enough money that some days we can eat food other than Ramen.  Uh... Yeah, I digress.

Because in my dream dear Hod died, I realized that I love this man more than I thought I could.  It's kind of crazy.  Really folks, this is some super lame, crazy intense kind of love.  Not like a creepy kind of crazy.  I haven't blown up pictures of him and taped his face to my teddy bear.  I just really love him.  I assume that all of you married friends understand what I'm saying.  As for the rest of you... just trust me.

Where was I going with this?  Yeah, I'm not sure either.  I guess to show my true devotion... or not really for that reason, here are some of our favorite engagements.  They were taken by L5.  She has some serious skills.

Oh The Wisdom

Hello fellow bucketteers.  Oh, I like that one.

So, I have a Mom.  She's pretty great.  She has taught me a lot of things.  I remember back in the day when I lived at home, that when she would run the dishwasher, she would never let it go through the dry cycle.  I never knew why.  I just assumed it was because that took a lot of energy and we were trying to save money where we could.  It made sense to me.  Maybe that really was the whole reason, but I wonder if there was something else involved.

You see, I live in an apartment with some pretty amazing girls.  (Hey, yo's!)  All of us have lived on our own for a large number of years, and we have mad skills at some pretty simple things.  For example, we can all load the dishwasher.  And yet, sometimes in my life, while living with girls with mad dishwasher loading skills, there has been a mishap.  During the great and powerful washing cycle, things shift just wrong and land on the heating coil. Then when it goes to dry, your house ends up smelling so bad you get a major headache and then stay up blogging instead of sleeping cause your head is spinning.  It's a total bummer.

Though, when I think about it, I don't remember this ever happening in my house growing up.  Not only does not using the power heat dry cycle save power, but if something does shift, it won't burn up, or melt down causing the worst smell known to man to take over every inch of the apartment, invading your nostrils and everything you thought to be good smelling and pretty.

The great wisdom of Mom's.

On other news, I spent today doing absolutely nothing.  Wedding plans are coming along great.  Though, with work and planning all day every day is super crazy booked for me.  So, dear Hod was willing to give up some of his time and do nothing with me today.  I think this is the first nothing day I have had in over a month. I am very aware that once I'm married nothing days will forever be gone, so I need to take advantage as I can.  Spending most of the day sitting in your pajamas, eating waffles, and watching Duck Tales.  What more could a girl ask for?  So, dear Hod, Thank you for spending the day doing nothing.  I could do nothing with you forever and be happy.  Ok, not true, I have to much ADD for that.  But for today, it was great.  I love you sir.  (Yes, I realize that is super lame.  No one forced you to read it..)

Life Changing Moments

Guess what dear friends!!  I'M ENGAGED!!!!

Here's the story:

Yesterday, (My birthday) I had to go the the large city that is my state capitol.  I had a wedding shower to go to.  Hod came with me, and he just distracted himself while I was partying with the girls.  He came to pick me up with flowers and a giant Slurpee!!  I was pretty happy about the Slurpee.  We drove to this pretty place downtown and then to a large area that is owned by my Church.  ... It's being really hard to be vague here.  I guess this is a big state, and you have no idea where I was driving from, so I'll just tell you.  We were in Salt Lake City at Temple Square.  We parked on one side, and then walked to the other.  Hod was in a big hurry.  There were lots of pretty flowers, and I was trying to take my time.  You know, stop and smell the roses (Ok, they were tulips) and all that.

Because of Hod's mad speed walking skills (He claims he was nervous) we quickly arrived at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  This is when things got a little bit special.  Hod sat me down in a chair, and then proceeded to blindfold me.  I really don't like being blindfolded, but I did play along.  I then found head phones being placed in my ears, and there was a great song playing.  It's called "I'm Doing Everything (for you)" by The Rocket Summer.  My favorite band.  I was then led through the lobby, dodging chairs, people and a giant piano into the elevator.  Did I mention I don't like being blindfolded?  A strange thing happens when you make me close my eyes.  Suddenly, I have no sense of balance.  The good news is, I had a very nice man holding my hand keeping me safe.  We rode the elevator to the 10th floor where they have really big windows so you can see the view.  We went to the east side of the building.  That is the side overlooking the city, not the temple.  The side overlooking the temple is cliche'.  He knelt down next to me, opened the ring box, and told me I could take off my blindfold and look at the view..  Here's the problem though, at this point, I knew he was proposing.  He positioned me so I was looking out the window, and he was just out of my line of vision.  So I'm standing there, looking at the city thinking, "What in the world am I supposed to be seeing??"  I was all sorts of confused.  Finally Hod says, "Um, the view's down here!" To which I turned to see him on one knee with a beautiful ring.  I jumped back in surprise, even though I knew it was coming.  Hod said some very cute things, that I can't really remember cause I was freaking out a lot, and he asked me to be his bride for eternity.  My brain was super fuzzy, and I just kept trying to say something in the affirmative.  My mouth was having issues.  As a result, what came out of my mouth was, "Uh... Yeah... Sure..."  I'm pretty sure I'm never going to live that down.

We then went to the Garden restaurant to celebrate.  It was an amazing day.

Here's the proof :)

The Green stones are Emeralds.  My birthstone :)

This is the side view.  Hod's favorite part is the side detail.  Oh, and Hod designed it.  The bottom is flat because I am hard on rings.  He did such an amazing job!  I Love him.  He's just so great!

Short But Sweet

So, I would like to update all of you on my life. I'm not good at calling people to let you all know this in person.

The deal is: I'm in love. And so is Scuttle. (That works nicely doesn't it.)

It makes me happy.

Have a great day!

Quite the Tribute

Yesterday was a fun day. It had it's highs and lows, but I had quite an enjoyable time.

Let's start with work, shall we? I don't really love my job, but I love my boss. I know, we've talked about this before. We have soup at work now. That makes me happy. Especially when it's the Tomato Vegetable cause that's so tasty and only 93 calories a serving. YES! Sorry, digressing slightly.

A man wanted soup today, but we couldn't give it to him in a bowl with the lid because we didn't have any. They were coming in a shipment that was running late. As my manager explained this to him, she kept talking about how the bowls were supposed to be there and she couldn't understand what was taking the bowls so long. It really sounded like she was talking about how independent the bowls were and that they were total slackers for not arriving on time. I like to root for the underdog, so I told my manager to be nice. They have such little legs, and they don't have any eyes so they could read a map, or mouths to ask for directions... Ok, yes I'm strange.

After the customers left, I was in the back doing dishes and still thinking about the conversation. I know, move on. I turned to a co-worker and said, "If you think about it, proportionately bowls would have to have really little legs." Her response, "Yes.... But WHY would you think about it?" She wasn't being mean, she's not like that. She was honestly wondering. Why do I think of things like that? I don't know. But I do. So, we made a little bowl man, and named him Murry. Not to be mistaken with Murry, the evil-demonic talking Skull.



After work I went with 4 friends of mine to a marching band competition. Quite enjoyable. Even if our waiter (who we think may be a closet knitter) was the slowest thing this side of Zimbabwe. Really, who takes 90 minutes to eat at a Village Inn? You do if you have our server!

We then quickly ran to Wal*mart cause we were now running late to buy ponchos and umbrellas. I heard L5 say something I thought I would never hear (~snicker~) and we were on our way.

I would bet that those of you not living in this state are not aware of what happened last Saturday. On the way back from a competition there was a band (Not L7's) that had an accident. One bus went off the road and fell over killing the staff member on board. She died saving her kids. The bus driver passed out and this women jumped forward and grabbed the wheel. She stopped the accident from being worse, but she died in the process. To show support for this band, many bands decided to wear red ribbons on their uniforms. I didn't want to be left behind so I too was wearing a red ribbon. It was really neat to see red ribbons everywhere. Yes, it was still a competition, but it united the bands.

At the competition, we accidentally sat next to the bulk of the student body for this suffering school. There were probably close to 200 people there. I was very impressed by this. Most of these kids had no idea what was going on (as shown by the fact that they would start cheering right after I would. That was a really cool drum break... I scream, and then they start clapping and yelling too) But they were there to support their peers. As the band took the field, they all stood and started singing their school hymn. I wished that I knew the words so I could join. The show was marched (and done very well) There was a moment of silence for the fallen director, and then this group of students started singing Be Still My Soul. Many tears were shed. But there was an amazing spirit there. I'm not a crier, but I was close.

Yes, this band swept the competition. But they deserved it. I was so impressed by the student body. They cheered for EVERY band. I didn't hear them say a single negative word. They didn't know what was going on, but they knew that their peers could use their support. They came to support the geeky band kids. (I can say that, I was one of them) People say that the teens today are selfish and mean and lazy. Maybe some are, but the ones I met last night were kind, thoughtful and quite noble. Way to be!

PS. Do you ever feel the desire to eat with a really big spoon, just because you can? Even though you have a really small mouth? I do.