D.e.l.i.s.h.

After a loooooong week of work, this weekend started with a very grumpy Amy, which Jason dealt with like a champ (as always). I am seriously the luckiest, he is so good at being patient with me! He picked me up from work Friday afternoon bearing three gluten-free Sweet Tooth Fairy cupcakes. Under normal circumstances, cupcakes would win a husband major brownie points, but yummy gluten-free treats are a rarity and Sweet Tooth Fairy really knows what they're doing, so Jason's points tripled. In fact, they taste exactly like regular cupcakes. Needless to say, I was one happy camper.

This picture's old, from the last time Jas got me gf cupcakes, so it might appear that the focus of the picture is the granola we had just made. Just ignore that. There's cupcakes down there.

And those cupcakes turned the weekend right around and I wore a smile the rest of the time. It was such a fun weekend, between wandering the shops at Riverwoods, driving around fancy neighborhoods, yummy yummy dinners, an awesome workout (I still can't walk straight), boating/skiing/wakeboarding under the only storm cloud of the weekend, family dinner, and, of course, chillin' in our 9000 degree apartment.

Yay for no air conditioning!!!!!

love you like a love song, babyy

I'm happy. I am so, so, so happy. Not just today, although I'm fairly happy today (it's Friday, and I slept in 40 minutes, and I had delicious Greek yogurt for breakfast, and I get to go running with Brianna this afternoon, and it's going to be such a fun weekend), but in general. I can't remember a time I've ever felt so completely whole and content. And I'm happy.

Jason and I met in accounting class, which isn't terribly exciting, and is very typical BYU. We studied a few time and hung out a few times and I liked him a little bit, and then one night he came over and we put in a movie but we didn't even press play. We talked and laughed and talked for eight hours. It was one of the best nights of my life. That night, something clicked.

The next day, I went to his family's house for dinner. I couldn't stop smiling as I drove there. I couldn't stop smiling as I walked up the steps. I couldn't stop smiling as I ate my dinner. I felt like such a dork, but I really, really couldn't stop smiling.

And I haven't stopped since. Nothing else matters quite as much as the feeling of absolute rightness that I have because of Jason. I am absolutely, unequivocally positive that Jason is the love of my life, my best friend, The One. He is it.

And I'm happy.

yesterday was one of my best days in a long, long time

and i have no pictures to show for it. right now, anyhow. laura has one, and the other is on my computer, so just a bit of patience, my friends.

my afternoon started with a few bites (okay, okay, half) of a shake at the creamery with jas and his family and his sister annie who i loved meeting. i only wish i could have stayed longer, buuuut...

..it was time to run (ten minutes late, of course) to meet laura, my long-time blog bestie. it was seriously magic. my deepest wish in life is that she didn't live in canada so she could live in utawww with me and we could spill our souls to each other every day. or whatever. you know. i just really, really liked it. and her.

and then i ran some errands and went home (by home, of course, i mean the bed in bri's dorm that i share with my baby sister...) and packed a bit and then relaxed for the first time in an eternity, and watched the season finale of gossip girl (uhhhh... hated it!!).

jason and i have been trying to be in a christmas mood lately, which is harder than it might sound, what with finals and all.

but it seems like we were repaid for our efforts last night when some random guy handed us a completed free-meal cafe rio card for no reason. christmas is the absolute greatest, and i mean that.

for christmas, jason's dad gave me tickets to the play a christmas carol. it was absolutely incredible. i wish i had some pictures of the theatre itself, it was beautiful, but all i have is a picture of us.. which is also beautiful? except it's on my camera. i am not generally a crier, but this play definitely had me crying. i was so touched by scrooge's pain when he realized all the opportunities he had missed to influence the lives of others. i'm hoping that our family will read the forgotten carols this season, which we do many years. it, too, is such a timeless story.

i love plays. i love how real and alive and genuine they are. going to plays is one of my very, very favorite things to do, and it was one of the most well-done plays i have seen in a very long time. it was truly a perfect night, and i was so happy to spend it with jas.

i'm happy today. i'm so, so happy to be going home, and to be done with finals, and to have just had a two hour talk with holly, and to be celebrating christmas. christmas often makes me somewhat melancholy, because i just don't feel good enough or i don't feel like i'm doing exactly what heavenly father wants me to be doing. this year, i'm really just purely happy. i am a daughter of a heavenly father who has blessed me beyond comprehension. i have the most wonderful family and friends who i am so grateful for. i wouldn't change a thing about my life right now. i love christmas, and i am so happy to be truly celebrating it in every sense of the word.

here's to happiness

ten things that make me terribly happy

( here )

10. that aubrey is home. :)

9. crepe bars at wedding receptions.

8. meeting lauren at said wedding reception.

7. getting a 91% on my isys test. (apparently i am incapable of getting anything except a 91 or 92 on any test this semester. weird.)

6. the new iphone operating system.

5. that my parents will be here in a month.

4. m.a.c. false lashes mascara

3. sushi.

2. costa vida, jersey shore, and soccer games.

1. heels and pencil skirts.

perfect.

lately i've been thinking a lot about being happy regardless of life.

most parts of my life are great right now. i love my job, i love byu, i love my classes, i love my friends, i love general conference, i love that my sisters live close, i love that my studying is paying off, i love that fall is coming.

some things are just not wonderful though. i super don't like my apartment, i hate the heat being turned on every. freaking. day. when it's 85 degrees outside, i'm tired of stomachaches, i dislike that my best girl friends living three hours away, and i'm sick of complicated life situations.

and yet, despite all the things that i would change if it were up to me, i've been happy these past few weeks. i've been really, really happy. because it's not about tomorrow. it's not about what life would be like if i still lived at king henry, or if i hadn't broken up with my boyfriend, or if i had instantly bonded with my ward and had roommates that i adore. it's just about today, and today i get to be happy.

it's like president uchtdorf said last week:

"don’t close your eyes and hearts to the simple and elegant beauties of each day’s ordinary moments that make up a rich, well-lived life."

and also, someday i'll stop being lame and start taking pictures.

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.

this is what i like to do:

i like to walk michael's aunt's dog. she lives at his grandma's house. and her name is dakota. the dog, i mean, not his aunt. dakota's the best because she literally freaks out whenever i walk in the door. mostly it's because she loves going for walks and i'm her official walker. but it's precious. she starts hyperventilating and wiggling all over and it is wonderful.

of course the most wonderful part is just walking and thinking and calming down and being outside. i love walking dakota.

brianna does not love dakota. that's because one day, michael and aubrey and shawn and reed and i went for a hike.

and we brought dakota some water in a water bottle and a tupperware so she could drink the water. well, she didn't drink all the water. so we poured it back into the water bottle from the tupperware. aka, dakota's spitty dogness was in the water. fast forward a month. bri's in my bedroom. bri's thirsty. bri picks up the water bottle. bri drinks from the water bottle. and now brianna hates dakota. because dakota's germs are in. her. mouth.

gross.

also, i am at this moment watching yesterday's bachelor pad. could kasey please quit singing songs? not cool. "from this moment on, i can carry on, my love for you. i gave you a promise and put it on your finger, and all i know now is that you are my forever." really, kasey? really?

one two three four

there are four things i am loving right now.

a) my job. fer real, it's magic.

b) letters from missionaries and packages in the mail.
(don't love when the letter is a double-letter, as in, i haven't written back since approximately february because i suck..buuuut the letter is currently on its way anyhow being forwarded from my house, hooray.)

c) peanutbutterbananachocolatechip sandwiches hello YUM.


d) gmail chat conversations with bee about snuggling, and email conversations with my mother about hp7p2.

oh, and also the fact that i get to go boating tonighhhhht. i'm from minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes. i wasn't made to go this long without getting on a boat.

it was a good day for a craft

sometimes it just needs to be craft time, yes?! yes.

so yesterday i set to work. i want an easel. i don't have an easel. but maybe in mine and aubrey's [freaking adorable] new townhouse i will have room for an easel in our robins egg blue loft room. (please, august 17, please come faster.)

this is my craft.

step one: make a stencil with an exacto knife and some tagboard. do not forget to keep the insides of the letters.

step two: get the paints and canvas and adhesive the tagboard to the canvas. paint.

step three: love it.

i'll fix the smudges tomorrow. i'm just a little too excited about it right now.

on another note, i'm getting used to my name, which we all know i have not always loved. today while sitting in humanities (which is 4:00-6:30 twice a week in the basement of the jfsb which means no internet and no cell phone service and no i am not kidding. i promise i don't spend all of class on the computer, mom, but the thing is that is a long long time to listen to a teacher talk about greek gods without a few self-imposed breaks..) i realized that my name is perfect for the things i like right now, which include floral prints, this color, and pretty things. so, i like my name now. mostly because i think this is a perfect dress for an amy, and i really, really like this dress:

ps it's my birthday in 20 days. so feel free to get this dress for me. thanks so much.

i am having the absolute best weekend.

why hello. paige has been prettyyy mad at me lately for being a terrible blogger. sorry paigalicious. here's the thing though. life is good. super good. and here are three reasons why.

1. im in colorado right now with chels. i like this girl. a lot. also her little brother blake who says we are besties. but really mostly i love chelsea and every second i am here i am just so happy i could scream.

2. i played some mini golf yesterday. and rather than being labeled as a liability, i was called "slightly above average." hey, i'll take it.

3. chels brought me to the pet store where they had a (wait for it...) PUGGLE. this morning my mother said to me "you sound a little obsessed." well guess what? i am. and playing with that puggle was the most perfect 20 minutes of my life. i don't even like animals. but i want my baby benjamin so bad :-/

this is what i love right now.

-having a child to distract me during church.

-having a child pee on me during church, allowing me to go home to change.

-writing missionaries. but mostly getting letters from missionaries. or letters from anyone, really.

-fast sunday.

-calling my sister in the next room to talk on the phone because i don't feel like getting up.

-learning html.

-doing my review job. (not even kidding.)

-pencil skirts and black heels.

-sophie kinsella books. i secretly love that awkward situation (that happens altogether too frequently) in which i am reading a book and cannot stop laughing out loud to myself.

-finally finally starting to get better.

-not forgetting to write my grandma my weekly sunday letter. :)

-the relief society sisters having a lively conversation about how to be honest when a) the color is nice but that dress does make your butt look big, and b) looking at the ugliest kid they have ever laid eyes on at the supermarket.

-just letting everything be okay in spite of (or perhaps because of) life.

two more things.

number one. my father is so classy he uses a knife and fork even while driving.

okay, not really. but i really and truly love this picture. he's a shockingly good driver while cutting his food.

number two.

this is what i am one hundred percent grateful for:

attached garages.

living in an apartment in the windiest place in the world (that also happens to be freezing cold and snowy), aka rexburg, (and particularly on the top of the hill at the ridge), has opened my eyes to the beauty of attached garages.

and as i got out of the car at 1:30 in the morning when it was c.o.l.d. after driving home from the airport sunday night, i was immediately flooded with the thrill of excitement that i wouldn't have to walk across a snowy, cold parking lot.

freaking love attached garages.

happiness.

driving around virginia for a week meant a lot of time to think. (okay, okay, that's not true. bri and i fell asleep almost immediately every time we got in the car. i felt like a kid that conks out as soon as the car seat is buckled. but still. i've had lots of thinking time lately.) i've thought about a lot of things: life, dreams, relationships, friendships, family, career, learning, school, work, what i like, what i don't like.

and i thought about the times in the past year that i've been most happy. not the long-term, life-is-great kind of happiness that happens every few months when everything clicks just right for a few weeks, but the momentary, this-is-what-life-is-about happiness.

this is what i decided.

1. summer days with paige. also known as jpm. it was exactly how summer is supposed to be. every day after class was done, either i'd go straight to paige's or she'd come straight to my place. we did our homework and made dinner and ate nilla wafers and went for long drives and sang loud and talked about boys and life and dreams. and every day i just thought, "yes. this is it."

(ps my biggest regret in life is that i will never have paige's lips. that is all.)

2. sitting on the sea lion beach at la jolla last march. i could have sat there all week. i had everything i could ever have wanted that day, including an invisible dog named benjamin, and i just couldn't keep my smiles inside. and i freaking love those sea lions.

3. running friday afternoon errands with chelsea. somehow it turned into a bit of a tradition this semester--i pick her up from class, we run random and usually entirely unnecessary errands (e.g. buying craft supplies or hunting rexburg's grocery stores for just the right kind of cheez-its), and then we go home and dispense with our friday night activities. i could never have made it through this semester without that girl, straight up, and even though this semester was a crazy weird time for both of us, friday afternoon errands were just happy.

4. the cabin. i don't know if it's the location ( a gorgeous tree-surrounded lake in wisconsin), the skiing (there are usually at least a couple days during which the water is a perfect ten), or being with my family in a place where friends, school, and jobs just don't seem to matter as much as laying on the dock, but i am almost always blissfully happy at the cabin.

and after making this list of my top four happiest moments in the last year, i realized: there is a really, really good reason that this kind of happiness doesn't happen very often. i'm glad it doesn't. i'm glad that i'm not one hundred percent on every second of every day. because then when these happy moments strike, i can just stand back and think, "yes. this is it."

(also i would like to point out that three out of four of my happiest moments occurred in the sunshine. so if anybody would like to buy me a ticket to the sun, that would be just fine. please and thank you.)

cheers to the freaking weekend

loooooove that song.

here is a list of my three favorite songs right now:

marry you*

we r who we r

cheers (drink to that)

*disclaimer: no, i do not watch glee. in fact i never have in my entire life. i just love this song.

and here are some more things i am loving right now:

being 70% sure that i am going to change my major

running at night (i am soooo over the whole morning-work-out-thing)

making lists...lots and lots and lots of them.

awkward chinese restaurants with sadie

registering for classes

that i am getting my car bumper fixed (yessssss)

chelsea's obsession with the word totes

three cheese (which will never, ever get old)

that spring break is almost heerreeee!!

quotes

matthew mccoughnehey in the wedding planner/failure to launch

getting paychecks

how i met your mother, modern family, and life unexpected

not wearing a coat outside

long conversations with my sisters

rereading old journals from the past three years

and most importantly....

that it's the weekend tomorrow!!!!

ps i want a puggle so bad i'm going to die.

i couldn't be happier

i've been feeling creative lately.

i love feeling creative. where my hands just want to make something and my brain won't stop thinking about all the things i could do and every sentence i make in my head comes out a little more poetic.

so today i made a craft. saturday is a good day for a craft, and considering how very little i did yesterday, i needed something to do. all in all, i made this with only two trips to the store and $38 dollars. it needs a little touch-up but for now, i really love it.

on monday i'm going to the store, and i'm going to start an art journal. i'm excited about it. (look here or here if you don't know what an art journal is.) i have a whole list of ideas and i can't wait to get started.

and i found this quote. i am freaking in love with it.

"I live now and only now,

and I will do

what I want to do this moment

and not what I decided

was best for me yesterday."

~Hugh Prather

oh, and ps..

i got my acceptance letter from byu tonight.

i'm not for sure that i'm going to go, but i'm pretty darn sure i don't want to graduate from byu-i, for a whole host of reasons which i will refrain from going in to. i was honestly a little bit nervous that i wouldn't get in to byu this time, despite being accepting as a high school senior.

my gpa at byu-i is a lot lower than it should have been (3.75), so i was a little (okay, a lot) concerned. but i guess i've done some cool stuff since starting college--volunteering at an orphanage in peru, working in the byu-i vp's office, secretary-ing some committees... so maybe i can attribute my acceptance to all that. frankly i don't really care what it is, i'm just relieved to have the option to transfer.

so now i'll go celebrate. :)

show and tell

there are three things that i am particularly thrilled about right now.

1. this backpack.

it's bri's old backpack. i have wanted it for about a billion years. but it was lost.. presumably given away. i was devastated. but brianna surprised me by bringing it out to utah this week. cause she found it. yayy :)))

2. this cheese grater.

i know you want to laugh. but don't. just try it. and let me know what you think. then just try to laugh.

3. best for last.

as a teenager, i read time magazine front to back every single week. loved that thing. and one week, there was about a six page article about this new thing that was coming out. it was called the iPhone.

i was obsessed with iPhones. i loved them. i was more passionately interested in them than you can imagine. probably more than was healthy.

but, i could not get one. not only because i was a poor 15-year old, but also because at&t service where i'm from sucks. so that was rough.

this is the phone i have had for the past two years.

it's wonderful if you're into the 100-decibel-vibrate, loud-clicking-keys kinda thing. which, as it turns out, i'm not.

luckily i have the coolest mom and dad in the world and as soon as verizon came out with an iPhone, i was allowed to put that baby in my hand and call it mine. greatest moment of my life.

i am on top of the world.

and yes that is a lion. i love lions. what can i say?!

The Last Lions

there are three things that i'm excited about right now. so hold onto your chairs, i'm about to share them with you.

1. going to utah. duh.

2. this freaking movie that is coming out so soon i can almost taste it. i love lions. i love documentaries about animals. i love lions. i love lions. i love lions. i am doing to die waiting of anticipation. aren't lions the mot attractive animal in the world??? please don't judge me. or do. i don't care. i love lions.

3. this blog. i am always, one hundred percent of the time crazy about busy bee lauren, but this post was seriously the kind where you sit and laugh to yourself for at least ten minutes.

and that is my life.

my mother

one of the best things about my mom is this:

every time you tell her a story, it's like she's hearing it for the first time. it's great because you get the same reaction every time. even if she's heard it three times already, you'll get the same gasp of shock because she honestly has no idea that she's heard it before. my mother is fantastic. and i am really, really lucky that she is my mom.

lately.

lately i've been thinking a lot about life. all aspects of life, really. who i am, what i want to be, what i like about this world, how my relationships with my family and friends really are. and i realized that there is so much more that i want from life than to go to school, go to work, hang out with people, and go to bed. i want to be passionate, creative, proactive, adventurous, optimistic. i want to truly live each day.

as part of that, i want to jump on the project 365 bandwagon. a picture a day for a year. i'm not much of a photographer. but i'm going to give it a shot anyhow. (give it a shot. get it? ha. ha. ha.) we'll start with a month and see how it goes.

so here's day one. old town mankato. :) i didn't feel this way until i left, but i love my town. i really, really do.