It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Can I just say how much I LOVE Christmas? Seriously. It's the best. Right after we have a day of Thanksgiving and are able to think about all the things we're grateful for, then we have a whole SEASON of giving to give to loved ones and to people who are in need. We also get to celebrate Christ's birth spend much-needed time with our families.

This year, Paul and I get to go home to Oregon to be with my parentals and I can hardly stand that it's only three weeks away! I'm excited to be in the cold, rainy, foggy weather and look at Christmas lights and drink hot chocolate and be all bundled up and cozy. I'm excited to have a fire in the fireplace and to sing Christmas songs and play the piano at the house. I'm also excited to watch old Christmas movies that my mom makes us watch every year...and maybe some new ones, too.

I just feel so happy and content right now. I'm sitting in my happy little apartment with my perfect wonderful Paul and thinking that we are so lucky to have so many blessings in our life. We have good friends and a good ward and Paul has a good job and I'm learning so much at school and we have so many opportunities in our lives to progress and learn and become better.

I love love love love love life.

BUSY!!!!

Sometimes I just want to do this:

Instead of this:

And I'll tell you this for sure, when I study I definitely do not feel as happy as this kid. TOTALLY misleading.

Fall Break

Halloween sugar cookies.

Pumpkin spice candle.

Reading Dracula instead of studying.

I love you, life.

October

Dear October,

Clean house. Cinnamon candle. Rainy morning. Snuggled in a blanket.

I knew you were gonna be good. <3

Dear Life

You have me pretty busy these days, but I am still finding time to enjoy the little things.

For example, I noticed that it's getting a LOT cooler in the morning. This makes me extremely happy because it means that "Fall" is coming. Well you know that I live in Arizona, so there's not much of a Fall here, but I can still enjoy the 80-90 degree weather way more than 110.

 You know what else I like? Apple cider in the grocery store. And pumpkins. And scented candles. I will miss the leaves changing color and the crisp, cool air that Fall usually promises, but I suppose I can do without it. 

Here are some other things I've been really happy about lately:

 Paul! He makes me really happy and he makes my life so easy.

No-bake cookies. Delicious.

I'll All the stuff I'm learning at school...seriously. I have NEVER had a problem with having headaches before (I'll be honest, I thought people mostly made them up), but this semester I get headaches nearly daily. I blame it on the fact that I have to learn so much in so little time.

Halloween is coming soon...I love this holiday. I'm going to watch "scary" movies like Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic. Love.

My momma is coming this weekend! So excited. She won't be here for long, but we get to go to Oregon for Christmas and I'm pretty excited about that. We just bought out plane tickets yesterday.

Why Porn Sucks

So I'm sure anyone who is actually reading this is probably one of my friends and will probably already agree with most of this because of religious value and what not, but I'm doing a research paper for a National Convention on whether or not prostitution should be legalized by the United Nations and I just thought I'd share some of my feeling about my research:

Most religious conversations antagonize porn because it degrades women and weakens the family structure and destroys a healthy sexual relationship between a man and a woman...but does anyone ever consider what it actually takes to create porn? Well, obviously you need some naked people (whether adults, male, female, or even children), and in some cases you need some sex act going on (child abuse, anyone?) and then you need some producer that is motivated by making money and is willing to do whatever it takes to make a profit, even if it's at the expense of the people in the pornographic material, whether it be videos or photographs. Interestingly enough, some of these "actors" or "actresses" don't actually want to be in these films. They may have been promised at one point that they were going to make lots of money, or perhaps they were just lucky enough to be born into poverty or abusive and vulnerable situations in which they were sold into pornography straight up. There was a story about one girl who was kidnapped and then taken to Florida where somebody beat the crap out of her until she consented to making a movie...

This situation is not unique. In fact, it even has a name now. It's called human sex trafficking and it is one of the fastest growing organized crime industries in the world. Why is it growing so fast? Oh yeah, it's because people are willing to rationalize things like pornography and prostitution as ways to express their sexual selves. Gross.

So, the next time you think about pornography, obviously it is something that harms families, but if you don't have a family, then just realize that you're basically witnessing/endorsing a rape crime on the internet. Rationalize that.

Tuesday Morning

5:30 am, the familiar sound of my alarm.

“I went to bed late last night…I only got 6 hours of sleep…I don’t want to be tired all day at work today…

Mmmm…I really should just sleep in today…I can work out tonight when I get home from work…”

I reset my alarm for 7 am.

“Ugh…I really should get up. I’m not even really that tired I’m just being lazy. In fact, I feel excited to work out today...

Plus, I ate all those brownies yesterday…and a cookie…and a soda…ugh I feel disgusting. I really need to get up and do something.

I need to clean my kitchen this morning, too…okay I’m up."

I roll out of bed and get dressed.

Mind = 1, Matter = 0.

The Monster

So there is a monster that lives inside of me. She comes out with no warning. I’ll just be sitting, minding my own business, usually reading, and the monster awakens. She makes me feel really lethargic and cranky. She tells me that the only way she’ll leave is if I eat something sugary…or eat at all for that matter. So I’ll slog into the kitchen for a quick sweet snack…but my little monster friend is a liar. She is not so easily subdued. I’ll then try to quiet her by getting on the computer and looking at pictures of friends and family and sending emails. Yet, she still persists in making me feel yucky.

The truth is, there’s only one way to defeat this monster…it’s the one thing the monster tells me I don’t want to do – Exercise. The monster tells me not to run or swim outside... “Just sit inside in the dark with me,” she sneers. “You’re too tired to go running. It takes so much effort to get ready to go and too much time that you don’t have. You should be studying instead.” But the monster doesn’t really let me study, either. She makes me bored and grumpy that I should have to study. She just doesn’t want to me to get rid of her.

So I reluctantly slink off the couch and slip on my old, trusty sneakers. I grab my ipod and together we jump onto the treadmill and run and run and run and run…until the monster slowly slithers back into her dark hole...

BABIES

So I'm beginning to realize that I'm a typical girl...I've been married a year now and every time I see a baby I just want to smoosh it. I love babies. I love baby clothes. I love baby animals. I love baby corn and baby carrots and other such mini foods. I think baby socks and shoes are particularly adorable. Add all of these things together and it basically means I want to have a baby.

Today I went to a friend's baby shower and almost died. She's going to have a little boy, so I spent some time in Target looking for little boy onesies and could not make up my mind on which cute little onsie to purchase. I agonized back and forth between turtle (I like turtles), teddy bear, and monkey patterns and spent way longer in that store that I initially expected. I settled on the turtles.

Last night Paul and I went to the drive-in theater in Scottsdale. It's the most amazing place ever and my favorite part is definitely all the families that are there. So many cute little kids that I just want to steal and take home with me. Paul says that's illegal.

Paul and I got there super early because it tends to be a little crowded on Friday nights so we spent some time in the little clubhouse playing old school video games. I sat down to play this truck driving game and this little boy crawled up next to me in the seat and started trying to play the game with me. I immediately fell in love. A few minutes later his dad walked up and said oh come on let her (referring to me) play by herself. Of course I was like, no he's totally fine! He was just my new little best friend. After the game was over, Paul was like, "Sally, let them have their kid back." I didn't realize my new little friend's family had been waiting for him so they could get to their movie.

Moral of the story is, I want my own little baby boy so bad! They're just so stinkin cute...Freakin law school is ruining my life.

Heart Attacks and Skin Cancer

So I check my email at least once a day and every time I log out I get this delicious temptation from Yahoo to read all their news. They have headlines and pictures that consistently catch my ADD attention span and then I spend an extra 5-10 minutes wasting time so I can read the articles. Freaking Yahoo...

So yesterday I read this article about how if you spend more than 54% (no that is not a typo, the number was 54) of your day sitting on your derriere (that's your bum) then you're more likely to die of a heart attack. Well this got me thinking...how much do I sit on my rear? When I wake up in the morning, first thing I usually do is turn on my computer and start studying for a few hours. During that time, the only time I get up is to get food. Then, I usually have to get ready to go places which only takes about an hour at the absolute most. Next I go to school and sit for a fantastic portion of the day, either in class or more studying. Finally I come home and make dinner, which doesn't take too long, then I sit on the couch and watch TV with Paul and go to bed. I'm not an expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure I'm sitting down about 87.4% of my day...Heart attack here I come. Oh yeah, and I'm constantly stressed because of school (really trying to work on this), so I'm probably even more likely to die of a heart attack. Great.



The plus side is that I'm always inside, too, which means that I never see the sun. So, even though I'm starting to look suspiciously vampirish, at least I'm not a candidate for skin cancer. Woohoo!

Provo All-Stars in real life

Oh I loved this video and thought I would share it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAUVV8BXwlI&tracker=False

Please teach me how to be such an intense BYU fan that I could create a video like this someday.

Spring in March - just like it should be.

Can I just say how much I LOVE Arizona? It's pretty much the best place on earth come the end of February. Every day the sun is shining and I drive around in my little car and sing at the top of my lungs. Love love love.

I thought I'd share a little about school since it's the only thing I do. Ever. I'm taking 5 classes, but I choose the classes I care about based on the professors I really like so I really only care about 2 of them...is that bad?

The first class the professor is this really old judge that usually can't hear what anybody is saying but he has the best sense of humor and if we were born during the same time period we would have been best friends. I often struggle with my hearing as well. He makes a lot of old movie references that no one ever gets...but you can't blame a guy for trying. If I ever had to teach in law school I would make a lot of movie references that no one got, too. Sometimes I want to invite him and his wife over to play pinochle with Paul and me.

In the other class, my professor reminds me a wee bit of Kermit the Frog. He's kind of nerdy and smart and very little, and I'm sure he is keenly aware of this similarity himself, so I have made it a point to keep my mouth shut and not tell a soul (except for, of course, my loyal blog readers - I think there's two of you now?). I usually just sit in class and smile to myself and make sure to make stupid comments every few days or so just so he knows I never have any idea what I'm talking about. I have regretted raising my hand three times now, and yes, I keep track. Whoever said people learn from their mistakes did not have me in mind - Way too optimistic.

Can't wait for the rest of the semester...

There is too an Arizona...and it is wonderful. Whoever wrote that song was wack.

I missed you, Arizona! I really did. I didn't realize how much I missed you until now....sitting in my new comfortable apartment and outside it's a warm 60 degrees. How I ever thought I could live without you...

I would also like to complain a little bit about how much I hate moving. I don't know how people pack up a huge house that includes furniture, too. Paul and I pretty much have a tv and a bed and I still gripe and complain about having to move that stuff. I finished unpacking today and our house is pretty much complete now. I feel so much peace when everything is in it's proper place and order.

So it's the very beginning of January and school doesn't start until January 18th! I guess that means that I have about two weeks to read through all of my text books and get the most out of my education I possibly can. I used to think it was pretty lame to get text books early to read them...but now I'm actually looking forward to it. It's amazing what a four month break will do to you.

In other news, I graduate in 18 months!! How crazy is that? I feel like I just started yesterday, but I am definitely looking forward to getting a real job and being able to save money for the future and pay off my law school debt. Hopefully Paul and I can have a grown up life someday with a house and kids and a dog. Until we get done with this school business, though, we'll just have to continue living our rented, nomadic lifestyle.

Off to the books for me...