my biggest wish

there are a few things i wish for on a regular basis.

the most important of these things is my wish for somebody to offer to give me a ride to work.

this happened on a very regular basis in idaho. and do you know what? i really liked it. this does not happen in utah. probably because (a) parking sucks, (b) i don't have a fiance, and (c) i have no roommates who go to campus.

am i my father's daughter? i am. does it show? probably not. because my father is all "if you're cold, go exercise!" "if you're tired, go exercise!" "if you can't concentrate, go exercise!" and when i moved to king henry (a solid 25 minute walk from the tanner building where i work) he said, "oh that's great! you can get some of your exercise in walking to class!" i am ashamed to admit that i walked to class exactly zero times that entire semester. it's not because i don't think my dad is on to something when he always says "go exercise!" cause i do, and i like my exercise just as much as the next girl. the thing is, though, i really value my sleep very highly, and waking up 20 minutes early is so far from worth it that i couldn't even make it happen once.

and guess what? i wish somebody would offer to drive me to work. first of all because it's a 15 minute walk and sometimes i get bored on my walk, and second of all because sometimes at 7:45 in the morning my legs are tired and all i can think is how much i would love (lovelove) to still be back in bed.

so.

randoms

french fries
as a child, i hated ketchup. loathed it. for example, i loved sloppy joes until i found out they had barbeque sauce in them and barbeque sauce has ketchup. and then one day we were at red lobster at one of those big round tables, and next to us was the table we always called the "laughy table," that really, really loud table which seemed to always be right next to us, and when my mother wasn't looking i dipped my french fry in ketchup real quick-like and popped that baby in my mouth and fell in love. and ever since, i love my ketchup. lately i eat a lot of french fries (or as my mother calls them, french bakes, because they're definitely not fried and even more delicious) because they don't make my tummy hurt. however, something i really, really don't like is running out of ketchup. i would rather have six times too much ketchup on my plate than try to get enough ketchup on my last fry. gross.

other random thoughts of the morning include:

bee
i wish that brianna's phone wasn't broken. at home, we have a terrible habit of walking down the stairs after getting ready and realizing that we are a) both wearing the same shirt, b) both wearing the same jeans, and/or c) both wearing our hair in the same way. and having class together three times a week means it's important that we check on these things with each other. i'm wearing a shirt that i own in red and she owns in pink. i'm nervous.

where is fall??

i miss my chelsea (and also this sweater. i wish i was wearing it right now.)

is it the weekend yet?
my level of excitement for the weekend is through the roof. this last weekend was fantastic. football game, moneyball, finishing my entire to-do list, A-'s on both of my tests, the park, church, relief society broadcast, long talks with my mother and emails from my father, lemon bars, source code.. perfection. but now i'm ready for next weekend. and quite frankly i think five more days is much too long.

how wonderful.

i owe zach a cake. so when he texted me yesterday and said it was his nephew's birthday and could that count, i was happy. because making cakes for kids is infinitely more fun than making cakes for adults. at least that's my belief.

what sucks, though, is when you make an incredibly vital mistake first thing in the cake-decorating process. and by you i mean me, and i'm not speaking hypothetically at all. i'm speaking this-is-the-story-of-my-life.

it all began this morning when i set out to make this iron man cake.

i printed off a picture of iron man from the internet and decided the most effective way to do this would be to poke holes in the cake in the places where i needed my lines to go. only i couldn't find any toothpicks, so i opted for a knife instead. and as long as i was poking holes in my cake, i figured, why not just cut the lines into the cake?

(as you can tell, it's been several months since i've made a cake. as in, several, several months.)

and everything was fine and the cake looked great and i piped the brown lines on and then i started adding the stars. and then the cake started collapsing. meaning, the entire left side of the face began falling away from the right side of the cake.

no big deal, i figured. i'll pop some toothpicks in and everything will be fine.

false. no toothpicks. also i would like to give a shoutout to the makers of pillsbury cakes for creating the moistest, softest funfetti in all of the world. great for eating. not so great for decorating.

as the cake fell farther and farther away (further? i can't remember. guess that's probably a sign i should be studying for my mcom exam next week..) and the frosting proved incapable of holding it up, i decided to try a new approach. namely, i cut the offending pieces from the cake and placed them on a plate to be reattached at a later time.

but the cake wasn't finished. so as more and more cake fell away, i decided to try a new approach, one which i like to call "go for the 3D, multilayered look."

i wasn't feelin' great about it, but i was feelin' fine about it. so i kept on truckin'.

and i finished the cake. and everything was fine. and i was happy.

and then i cleaned up the kitchen and looked at the cake again.

aaaaand there went the rest of the cheek.

so it's currently sitting on the other side of my table, hidden behind my computer, propped up with a cup. i'd really, really, really rather not look at it anymore.

cakes suck.

true

“It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, life is on a stroll.”

-donald miller

this is what i'm thinking

sometimes i just look in the mirror after waking up half an hour late and am genuinely impressed with my ability to make myself look presentable in fifteen minutes. today was one of those days. good work, amy.

last night cristina and brianna came over and we made pizza. i think they're fantastic. really, just wonderful. so that was lots and lots of fun.

and then i went to the movie warrior.hello best movie ever. (and no, i am not just saying that because of the high volume of ripped shirtless men. promise.) it was just really, really great.

also, i'm not allowed to chew gum anymore, on account of my stomachaches. considering i regularly go through four or five packs of gum a week, i'm foreseeing a problem. wish me luck on that one.

and one more thing. i walk into work today to find this on my desk:

thank you, brent. heaven help me.

is it monday again already?

i love hiking. i love being outside in the sun, i love walking in my nikes, i love when it is greengreengreen and surrounded by trees, and i especially love when a waterfall or lake or river is the final destination. i love sitting on a rock and just thinking, i love the feeling of satisfaction when i get home. (and maybe i also love not having to drag my butt to the gym later that day..)

favorite picture.




one other thing i really love is when chelsea and kylie surprise come over at one in the morning. particularly when they sneak up the stairs and it scares me more than they even planned. and particularly when chels brings the most glorious, perfect, wonderful birthday present in the entire world--an african safari journal (made out of elephant dung by african children..classy) and a baby nala.



soooo happy that chelsea's back in rexburg a mere three hours away and that kylie is in heber.

i just don't feel like putting pictures up

there are some things in my life that i'm really diggin right now. like, really, really diggin. (these things do not include: the rose thorn that sliced my right palm open two days ago and still hurts, the customer service system at wall street journal, the gash i put in the side of my car trying to park on wednesday, or the mind-numbingly boring statistics professor bri and i listen to for three hours a week.)

first and foremost, having a sister who is a freshman is the best. thing. ever. no exaggeration. not only because she feeds me lunch sometimes at the cannon center, but also because, when i have an hour break between my normal classes and my four hour (FOUR HOUR!) art class on thursdays, i can pop right over to her dorms and take a quickie nap. beauty.

second, accounting class is full of some w.e.i.r.d.o.s. (no offense to dan or zach, both of whom are cool enough to prove that accounting can, in fact, be a respectable major.) we're assigned a new seat every day in class, which certainly mixes things up, allowing me to meet some fun people (jason, elise) and some strangies (coughMATSONcough). it keeps things exciting. mostly i just love watching those more ..interesting.. people (a) flirt with girls, and (b) make conversation. magic.

third, pumpkin bread. i feel strongly about pumpkin bread. strongly positive. and i made two loaves this week. so i'm feeling strongly positive about life. (also can we talk for a second about bbq chicken sandwiches? FAVORITE.)

fourth, sleep. sleep is a beautiful thing. even more beautiful as of today, when i was getting the mail at work and found a request for 18-55 year old pre-menopausal women to perform a simple sleep study and receive $100. pretty sure i fit the description. pretty sure i'd like $100. pretty sure that's going to be happening.

fifth, i am such a fan of being busy that i cannot even explain it. work eight to twelve, class til three, appointments, art class, kickboxing, or homework til evening, something fun til bedtime, sleep. begin again. love it. way more than i should.

sixth and last, the rain at this moment. rain in the loft sounds freaking incredible. it's raining really hard. and i can hear the cars splashing in the puddles. so even though it's messing with my plans to get free jdawgs tonight, i'm liking it.

thank you and good-bye.

september.

the blog-world is absolutely overflowing with posts about fall, and crisp air, and new beginnings.

i wish i knew what everybody was talking about. maybe it's because i've been in classes all summer, so fall isn't so much the start of something new (no homo, hsm) as the continuation of something i've already been waist-deep in. maybe it's because it's still 85 degrees outside in provo, and in st. george this weekend it was 102, and neither 85 and 102 scream "crisp autumn air" to me. maybe it's because i didn't go to a barbeque or picnic or parade on labor day (do people have labor day parades? not sure.) but instead ate grilled cheese sandwiches and then drove three hours home and did my homework and went grocery shopping and sat in the hot tub.

the weekend was fun. especially cliff-jumping and swimming at sand hollow. and three cheese and making sunday dinner like an adult and playing in the river. loved it. didn't take any pictures, naturally, but that's life.

i wish it was fall.