Oh pumpkin treeee oh pumpkin treeeee

how lovely is the mold inside you!

It rained last night, and I couldn't sleep. I kept taking dash out because of the farting.I know, TMI right?

Sorry I keep changing things up on the blog, I'm trying to find something I like more than what I had before which is turning out to be sort of futile.

I miss my grays and greens.

I didn't have crazy dreams last night but seriously, this is spooky but I swear on all that is holy I heard a child say I love you mom last night in my room. It wasn't scary then because I was half conscious but the weird part was that I had both earplugs in and the fan going and I heard it clear as day.

Church is in an hour.

I'm crunching on pumpkin seeds and thinking about when brandon will be home.
We've decided to go to the ball! I am so excited, the marine corps ball has had the same traditions for seven hundred years (i think someone told me that... and not the voice whispering in my ear at night either) (and not getting drunk, that's an older tradition because of the open bar) I've had my dress expedited and I am really excited because even though it's sort of an old lady dress it's modest and I can wear it for any gown occasion. It's dark blue so I guess I won't be much standing next to brandon in his dress blues but still. OH and yesterday he was pinned for Corporal I am so proud of him. Too bad the medals he got look really shabby (he says, i think any medals look good because the only medal i've ever won was in second grade field days in connecticut for the potato sack race blue and gold baby and plastic) they make a really pretty chiming sound all next to each other but the ribbon parts are all wrinkly and some are even falling apart. They were really expensive too. More about my gown though, it has a sweetheart neckline and an empire waist and lace sleeves and it's all black lace overlayed over dark blue puff. all i need is some white gloves which are somewhere around here. oh i have black ones. good.

uhoh what kind of shoes should i wear... oh brother. i want to wear flats. hope that works out.

i gotta run and do my sunbeam lesson. i wonder how crowd control is going to work for me since brandon's not here to be an extra lap and so i cant take bathroom runs. piff.

ps it's been unusually loud upstairs this morning. stomping and crying and big booms. looks like the candy rush is just starting. hope the supply ends soon
this morning i found dash out in the backyard yanking their slip and slide out from the crumbled heap under the porch. he just has no idea that all the junk they leave out isn't for him to chew on. it's bad.

Speak Now

I don't usually make people listen to music on my blog, that actually really bothers me when people have automatic players- just because you like a song doesn't mean I want to hear it every single stinking time you write a blog and I want to read it! Even if I love you to bits. Fo' realz.

I just bought two albums that are changing my life musically speaking.

Taylor Swifts new album, when I first started listening to it I thought it just sounded like everything else she's written (duh you say, it's taylor swift! she can only be one sound hellooo) but I ignored my initial reaction and continued to listen and the songs in the middle of the album are AWESOME. Mostly, besides her vocal talent- the lyrics are really good. It's not that it doesn't bother me when women make a huge profit off pawning off general- isms on romantic mistakes we've all made in the past and regret- but taylor did a really good job. or her lyricist did.

People are gonna say I'm a trend follower, but I don't care because I used to hate country music and when I met brandon it was a constant fight over the radio knobs. I mean, seriously I'm surprised the car didn't crash a few times.

I love to sing, even when I didn't talk as a kid, I was always singing to myself. So I thought because of that I could say I appreciate music in general. But mostly I thought (and was raised to think) country was twangy, irritating, and written about three different subjects. When brandon left for afghanistan, I started listening more and more to country, I soaked it up, I did everything I could to be near it. It shocked me at first but then I gave in and fell for music that has a lot more emotion to it and talent then I ever gave it credit for. It wasn't fair for me to judge a type of music when I never even listened to it! So I guess I'm knocking my own words at the beginning of this post by not giving other people's music a chance (it's just when I hear the same song over and over and over again and it takes me ten minutes to scroll to the bottom or side or upside down to pause it or turn it off...:\) I still don't like some country artists and some songs but altogether I like country music, it makes me happy and is uplifting and it's the only music that honors the military instead of tearing it apart like everything else in this country (which only has the right to because people in the military defend that right).

Anyways, I didn't mean to write a big long blog. I miss brandon. I didn't really think he was leaving for real this weekend for drill. It's been a lonely and boring halloween. Maybe next year will be better (at least maybe next year I can carve a doggy pumkin that doesnt look like yoda) or go to arbys and eat four roast beef sandwhiches. (bad bad bad idea) or sit on the couch next to my dog counting how many times he farts or wondering what he dreams about while his mouth twitches and his paws fling back and forth twitchingly. Or figure out how to bake punkin seeds correctly.

I was even the neighbor lady who lives in the basement who didn't hand out candy and didn't open the door because dash would maul everyone with mush kisses which usually doesn't work out when the people he's mauling are under four feet tall. Any way you try to explain it, you sound like a dog person instead of a people person which people with kids and not dogs usually don't understand.


I wonder where dash is going in his dreams, probably on the walk i didn't take him on today, chasing the birds that he doesn't know are flown far away from the frost.


Am I being depressing?

Happy Halloween.

oh the second album I bought was Lisa Hannigan's Sea Sew. Buy it, or steal it. just listen to it. especially the song Pistachio. Even the live version on youtube is amazing.

lately dash has been sleeping like this.



maybe it explains his digestion issues
or maybe it was the half of a roast beef sandwhich i fed him
or the box of gingersnaps.

or the pumkin innards which he loves.

HATETML

okay, blogging geniuses. these polka dots have my brain doing the polka. they hurt my brain. so i want to get rid of them for something simpler... but i copied a smart person's template so... i dont know if digging in the normal direction to change something like sidelines would apply here. also, i want my sidebar back! really this is just a cry for sense and people who know html.

on a happier note,
it smells like fall outside.
i'm not kidding.
if you live in rexburg near the nature park, go take a whiff! it's awesome!

and i'm not talking about the artificial corn syrup leaking from every child's mouth with cranky screams smell of fall.
i'm not talking about a place dedicated to smelling like fall, like a corn maze, or a pumpkin patch (although if you need your fall smell these are readily available i'm sure)
i'm talking about the, i'm burning wood in my fireplace, the leaves are kind of moldy and delicious colors, the pumpkin guts in the middle of the road and the happy feet of children running from door to door to door to door with pillowcases dim with detergent.

THAT's what i'm talking about.

also, how much toast can you eat before it is bad for you?

also, I want to be one of those people who hands out toothpaste every year, is that terrible? I really disliked those people as a child.

ps

good music for your halloweening! ignore the creepy guy's face. (and actually now that i listen to all of it, about every other one is good.) (sorry i just got excited about what was a good idea!)

They call me mellow yellow, quite rightly...

so tonight, instead of dressin up in the hubs camis and running off with a can of beanieweanies to dance my tush off i decided it would be better to change the blog and hang out with the dog. and secretly but not so secretly watch instant watch on netflix.

cool huh?

i LOVE the new do though what do you think?

ps thank you to alison and ben (and abigail and bryson and auxtin) for keeping my stinky, runny knowsed- wonderful marine in their home tonight.

pps happy hellowyelloween! hope the blog doesnt hurrt your eyesicles.

SHOOSE A few of your favorite things

shoes the right wayyyyy and be happyyyy

http://www.lorisshoes.com/department.asp?deptid=4334

http://www.kathrynamberleigh.com/collection/

all flats are belong to me. someday.


also, did you know that fossil watches sells clothes? that are cute?

also

nintendo yahtzee?

WHAT?!

for your messaging needs or maybe your wedding invites.

kate spade, taunting the poor fashionistas

everyone [girl] needs something that is pink.


if you like things to stick


if you like paper art


if you need new boots for a good price!


ignore the nasty nails because this ring is awesome

and you're pretty

Knews

I want sushi so badly right now that I could scream.

also, maple bars.
also, sleep through the whole night.

so hip

i love when i find AWESOME things before hip people do. i'm not trying to be rude or brag but i love it. (it rarely happens and truthfully it's usually because i have a few hidden hippest people in my life who always know stuff ahead of everyone because it's just what they do so im like the middle man woman)

baby it's, {inhuman} outside.

Every year I am surprised by snow, and every year I am shocked at how cold I am.

You'd think I wouldn't forget it by now right?
wrong.

On a happy note, my mom sent me amazing Halloween decorations! I LOVE them and her. How awesome is that? Tonight we are carving the pumpkin and as I type this dash has found my eggos and is eating them. guh! That dog is like having a child, he gets into EVERYTHING! And then he looks at you like "WHAT?! What is YOUR problem?" you, you are my problem. my love problem. I can tell he is really hungry because he'll start by licking the walls, the carpet, the furniture, my hands and then when he goes to my feet I know he is desperate. If you knew what my feet looked like, you would understand.

You know it is really freezing when the kids upstairs wont go outside. Instead they stay in, taking their energy out on our ceiling, the walls, I can hear what sounds faintly like sawing but I'm almost sure is someone coloring on the walls with a ballpoint pen. Can't wait until someone discovers that. The weeping and wailing and general gnashing of teeth that goes on upstairs reminds me that I still have some time before children. I also have time to discipline the crap out of my kids, if me or any of my siblings had EVER behaved the way I hear things going on upstairs do, I would have been knocked into next week. And I probably was. I'm not saying I was the perfect child, but if I was sent to my room and screamed for almost an hour, there would have been a worse punishment when I got out than for what I went in for.

I'm so glad I have the parents I have. They put up with so much of my drama, but they never babied me and they always let me know that they were a team.

Sometimes I think dash just comes to sit by me so he can fart and then run off wagging his tail and leaving behind death in my nose.

oh well, happy halloween people! I can now celebrate because I have decor, punkins, and since we are in rexburg, snow.

I better go to the kitchen, I just heard brandon say, "OHHHHH YOU STEPPED IN IT" to dash...


ps it could happen to you is a good movie. and I don't even like nick cage or his unfixed 80's teeth.

it could be

I was thinking today, a pastime of mine.

Before I fell asleep for a nap I began writing in my brain. It's funny how perfectly flowing thoughts are when you are completely relaxed. It makes sense then that a stress filled life is typically a short one.

I decided that there are two types of thinkers, the viewer and creator and the logical formulator. I wish that I had the talent to spare words and to write exactly what I mean or how I feel, but most of the time the process of writing all the in between words is exactly how I find the finished product at all. Without the mush, without the entire spectrum, I miss the solid color completely. Figuratively of course that is just my brain. I spend a lot of time with a view to live rather than living. When I say that I mean that I would rather watch people interact with each other and create their world in my own safe space than interact with them myself and experience the reality of what probably consists of a dull conversation.

In many ways, this is an unhealthy way to live. But in other ways I think it is significant to what is defined as the "artists' life". Does the artist live? Does the artist live a lie? Or is the artists' life devoted to recording their view on life. Is that egocentric?

Later Brandon was asking me why there was so much more satisfaction in reading a book than in watching a movie.

I feel like that relates to my sleep induced ponderings earlier. When you read a book, the writer has allowed you to complete his tale in your own mind. Whereas when you watch a movie, you are being spoon fed somebody else's interpretation.

Your ability to create has been inhibited by what IS instead of what could be.

(which is why in scary movies you say to yourself, it's only a movie, it's only a movie it didn't come from my mind)

so, the scariest thoughts of all are your own. Which is why I think so many brilliant artists went crazy. There wasn't enough logic in this world to explain their thoughts. And instead of accepting the unacceptable in general, they rejected themselves.

creationtine

Brandon is doing invisible snatches (excuse me, power cleans) in our kitchen while eating an entire can of grands biscuits for breakfast. champion. Dash only comes to see me when i'm eating (which is usually pretty often)hey, you're supposed to eat small meals all day! minus the small. i keep having these crazy dreams filled with people i dont really know anymore. lesson for the day: the trials you can't see are often the hardest. via brandon lifting invisible weights.

we both have a zit in the same place on our face.

yesterday brandon poured a cup of water and started trying to mix creatine in it, when i moved toward the cup he said the creatine is MINE! as if i was really going to try to drink the stuff! eufhgw. now whenever he tries to eat what i'm eating is yell, THE CREATINE IS MINE! champion.


that stuff is gross.

sometimes i wonder if my dog wants to eat us.


last night we laid in bed and watched lol cat clips and laughed until we were both crying.

also, we've decided it's the best insult if when someone is bothering you to say "trash" as you drag their imaginary self into your computer recycling bin. champion.

what the

our landlord called me today to tell me he is showing the house.

WHAT?

we still have a year contract!

and my dog dug a hole in the backyard that i need to fill up before he gets here! and i'm sick! i give up!

world, you win
just do my dishes.
and my laundry
and make all my food dreams come true.

kthnx

half and half

my dog smelled bad,

so i washed my dog.
now my dog smells like clean

wet
smelly
dog.


plus or minus?

now he is chewing on himself.

genius?
totally.

more honey!

Philip Freneau was the "poet of the american revolution" but his life was also capsuled in a biography which termed him a literary failure. "Freneau failed in almost everything he ever attempted." He served in the united states presidential cabinet, and died alone, impoverished, in a snow storm. Forgotten.

The Wild Honeysuckle

FAIR flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet:
No roving foot shall crush thee here, 5
No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature’s self in white arrayed,
She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by; 10
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
Thy days declining to repose.

Smit with those charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died—nor were those flowers more gay, 15
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
Unpitying frosts and Autumn’s power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came; 20
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between is but an hour,
The frail duration of flower.

P. Freneau

limeade

bread!

with brandon's head in the corner...

dognews

last night i came into the kitchen and brandon was drinking unsulphured molasses out of the jar.

so i guess i'm making bread with honey.

we watched marley and me last night and now that i've admitted to being a dog person it was a sad movie! it reminded me of my friend chris dixon's dog chandler, the sweetest oldest lab ever.



it was funny to see how much lab dash has in him, sometimes he's a naughty dog but i am so glad he never cried all through the night or chewed through our walls or bark at everything.

we were pretty lucky.

maybe i'm just procrastinating making bread...

"we're a team!... you do it"- brandon

ps i am going to start making bread. please pray for me.

How to train your jacqueline

there is so much i am excited to tell you all about but it will have to wait until a later post because right now i have to concentrate on what's happenin at school.

i absolutely adore my landscaping arch. class, right now we are beginning our first model yard/home and i'm thrilled with the entire process. my brain just works this way, i think up all sorts of crazy ideas and plots and plants and mediums to make things with and now i finally get to put all those together and create something that will be scored! i probably wont do perfectly this round since it's my first time trying but i've already begun bubblediagraming the layout for it all.

in another topic of interest, honeycrisp apples? if you live in rexburg and you shop at broulims, i want you to get in your car, drive to the store and buy a big bag of these. they are delicious and crisp and they almost have a cinnamon flavor around the juice when you first bite into them. they are heavenly (thank you lachelle, produce goddess of the world for introducing me to these apples, i will never go back) and once you bite, you won't go back to fuji ever again. bet your bottom dollar.

as i am getting older (did i really just say that? i'm 22!) i've noticed that my taste in foods and preferences for them is changing. i crave things i never would have wanted to eat, or things i hated as a child. For example, broccoli and any kind of eggs, as a child i would go to great lengths to avoid both foods. Now that's all i want to eat!

This morning we wandered out into the frost and chased dash around the backyard, now it's almost impossible to catch him to come inside because he thinks we are playing a game! His fur raises up on the top of his back and he barks and growls and runs around like a wild thing. I call that fur patch his rogue spot. It's like the signal that he knows he is being naughty. We threw the football around until it got too cold, brandon chased dash around until both of them couldn't breathe and then we went inside and watched how to train your dragon, suchsuchsuch a great movie. It reminds me of my friend Kirsten and all the amazing times we had this last year. She has been an incredible friend to me, probably the best I've ever had. We've been through thick and thin and warm and cold and probably almost every restaurant in orem and provo utah.

I know i'm just blabbering, but i needed to get stuff out of my brain.

Someday my sense will come back to me and I'll be able to write one continual complete thought process. I promise. But you have to forgive me, because I've been editing brandon's school work all week and helping him rework his writing I cant concentrate on mine too! I'm not gonna brag but he did score the highest in his english class for his paper comparing james joyces' Araby to adam and eve. so call me dr.english. Until then

j

indulgence

the little boy upstairs has started calling me "dashaline".
i know quilckly i am becomming one of those people, those dog people, who just talk about their dogs and post pictures of their dogs and talk about all the cute things their dog does that no other dog does like licking and loving and cuddling and snuggling. but i can't help it, and if you met dash you couldn't either.

this morning dash indulged me by doing what he always does and claiming my lap for his chaise-lounge (preface: i know in all these photos my legs/body look hugemongerous but it's all smoke and mirrors, and i had to tilt the comp. wayyy down so that i could get his face) so i indulged him by singing he's a lady whoah whoah whoah while i played with his ears and took stupid photos.

this is the result.

woof vacuum like dyson but better.

Dogs make the best vacuum cleaners.

Dash just singlehandedly ate all the leaves and mulch sticks and now is doing frankly a really good job chasing his tail in the kitchen.

So proud of that pup.

So proud.

an amazon.

dear amazon.com, if you email me one more time today i will never visit you again. ever.

love,
j

FNL ftw.

if you were wondering where brandon and i have been this past two weeks.
we just finished season four on netflix watch instantly and now i'm worried about what else there is to really do with our lives (just kidding)

but this show is
amazing.

keewan, ingrid, and nona

so i'm introducing you to our sunbeam class (more like sunbeam BLAST!) I wish i wish i wish i had taken photos of them today because honestly they were so cute but there were only three (which was, truly, enough at once) and normally there are supposed to be six to eight chillens! WHAAAT?!?

keewan: is three years old, he is korean and speaks very little english without being shy but is incredibly smart. today we enjoyed his rendition of "button button whose got the button" for every answer to every question we had about honesty. does the primary manual KNOW that that's a drinking/suicidal game? okay...

ingrid: is a liiiitttle hard to pry from her mother, but once she opens up she is a gem in a brown dress with pigtails and a huge smile with "white tights" and then at the end of primary she is hard to pry off of you. my favorite was her twirling everytime she got an answer correct and she was the only child who understood the lesson and defined honesty for us at the end. also since i said my favorite color was brown, now her favorite color is brown too and she told me all about her new princess necklace and she is being a kitten for halloween. that tickles me.

nona: this one is allll fluff and curls. she's not afraid to speak up and do things she's never done. she taught us all how to properly march, and she was the first one to remove our ridiculous headbands that said i can be honest because she is ahead of her times fashion savvywise. brandon asked her if she would steal his new bicycle and if that was honest or not and she said that it was okay to steal his bike because she wanted to. hahahaha nona is being a princess for halloween. the one from sleeping booty she says.

okay sorry
class was awesome.
except the sugar cookies i took all night making and writing their names on,
were from an old sunbeams list and...
only keewan got one with his name on it in class.
luckily i had two pumpkin ones for the girls.

close one.

love jsauce.

ps

looook at what i maaaade! it took forever. but if you want to do it all you need is a floral foam wreath, some black tape, ribbon, hot glue gun and candy corns. and a wreath hanger thingymabobb.

i have no halloween decor. so. this is the first besides the punnkin! i love halloween.

n00bz

the newest member of our family is here!

nom nom nomacle.

i have a question, why do teachers want MORE of a good thing if it's just good the way it is?

i guess if we like a plant we want it to grow bigger and more fruit. if it's a fruit plant.

oh analogy fail.



im making taco rice.
dash is snuggling on my sofa
brandon is groaning in the corner of the couch
because he has to write another page and a half of his theory on james joyces' Araby.

he's comparing the story to adam and eve which i love.

hungry and late as usual.
j

tech savvy?

my new computer is coming in the maiiiillll!!!!! I am so excited!
also, on this cute girls' blog i heard the most awesome sweet phrase on the whole planet in the entire universe and it is


"God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies..."
— Elizabeth Gilbert

isn't that amazing?!? holy mackeral.

did you know it's bad to sleep on your back or your stomach?
when you sleep on your back it restricts blood flow to the rest of your body and when you sleep on your belly it's a strain on your back.

did you know it's almost impossible for me to sleep on my side now that i know that?


did you know that all babies are born with female brains for the first ten weeks or so?



did you know that i want to eat mac and cheese for breakfast?
it's 1133 so it counts as lunch.

is mac and cheese a saturated fat?

seize the carpe.

peach smooches

so, sometimes my brain starts talking and i can't tell it to just be quiet so i am going to let it all out here. sorry for braintalkingless people. i admire you all.

did you know that purple carrots taste better and are better for you?

did you know that cooking your vegetables doesn't remove almost any nutrients? that's false.

did you know that the five children who live above us are all under the age of seven and right now one is having some sort of terrible fit?

did you know i'm alive and happy sometimes and sad sometimes?

did you know that my dog kinda looks like a deer with a boxer's head and a lab's heart?

did you know that sometimes my house is clean?

did you know my husband is asking me if i wrote about my vampire attack today because i bit him because he kept calling me names?

did you know that CREAMY kraft mac and cheese is like one billion trillion googleplexian times better than normal mac and cheese. how come it took me 22 years to figure that out?

did you know that my favorite names for children are grace elaine, peter liam, lionus grover, penelope naomee and thats it right now because theres not enough room in my head for any more children.



brandon is laying on the floor and making fun of my "stretchy pants"

j