lantern love...

guess where I went today???

IKEA!! Our new store just up the freeway opened up just a week or so ago... and for work, for random reasons, I got to go, and get paid to be there! It was awesome!! So much fun stuff all in the same building. Of course as you would expect from IKEA there was some weird stuff too, but all in all it was a wonderful trip...

and guess what I found... they just jumped out at me, i mean seriously, we saw them several times and I kept resisting but then as we stood in the check-out line, there they were again...



so I bought two... to hang outside my front door, please ignore the fact that the house is kinda ghetto, it's just a rental, i swear someday we'll be in a beautiful/clean home...



oh aren't they beautiful???
and don't they make even OUR house look cute!!??
I am in love... and only 3.95 a piece! yum!!



hope you all had a happy thursday, love you all!

Our Fantabulous Memorial Day Adventure!!

With all the stress at work I knew we had to get away for the weekend, for something wild and fun! We almost went to San Francisco, and then almost up to Canada, and then decided to head south. To Escalante, Utah to be specific. I'd never been and there was a canyon we'd been wanting to backpack. The drive went fairly quick, of course with a stop at a creamery with "the world's best ice cream", and guess what? They were right!! They had a flavor called Blue Mint that was truly divine!!
We decided to hike Coyote Gulch... a fabulous choice...


gettin' ready to start off!


my love Jordo, and me


let's get this show on the road...


if only we'd known about this special spot before... we would have pushed and spent the first night under this half dome, it was gorgeous!!


just one of the many waterfalls along the trail, they were all so beautiful


jordo doin' his best happy dance at coyote arch... he's obviously a very talented dancer!! ;)


definitely my favorite shot of the trip, hallo there!


a beautiful small flower growing on the canyon wall under a ledge...

well, there were many more photos of course, but I know you can only take so much! It was a fabulous trip, of course the guide book mislead us on how to exit, thereby leading us to take a different exit route, which took us over unplanned areas with less drinking water than desired, not to mention it was during the hottest part of the day, and then my love had to hike all the way back to the car, leaving me on the side of the road with the packs because he thought if I walked any further I would die of heat exhaustion and dehydration, he might just have been right... and then... (yes it does go on) as we were heading out, in our car, we ran into two hikers whose group had taken a wrong turn in the canyon and came out much further down than expected, and they had locked their keys in a different car at the original trail head, so....... we took them back to get their car, but we were almost out of gas and had to coast down every hill to get back to the freeway, and barely made it, running on fumes... and then ended the fabulously divine backpacking adventure!!!!!

We had the time of our lives!! Hope you all had a great weekend too, love ya!

jump jump jump ! ! !

jump! Jordan and I went down to Cedar City, UT this last weekend to meet up with some old roommates of mine from college... We had a blast! This is a picture Jordo took of me and my gals jumpin' up at cedar breaks... it was sooo windy, and we were out on this ledge that overlooked a gorgeous view.

left to right: me, kami, & marie

Megs followed through in my place and finished up our cleanse from the last two weeks. I know I flopped out early, but I tell you I couldn't have made it through this last week on brown rice and avocado alone!!
love you all!

day 10 of the old, day 3 of the new...

So, today is supposed to be day 10 of Megan's and my cleanse. But it has officially become day 3 of a new kind of cleanse. A cleanse of spirit and mind.
Explanation:
My boss had her first child this weekend and I am so incredibly happy for her and her new bundle of joy. But you can imagine where this has left me. Monday was probably the worst day I have ever had at this job. So much stuff to do, so little time and knowledge on my behalf and so many frustrated coworkers aiming their frustrations of time and deadlines towards little old me...
So as you can imagine at about 1pm on Monday, after almost crying in a very official meeting, I was in desperate need of a chocolate bar. We had stashed away some hersheys chocolate bars in the freezer several weeks ago,left over from my boss's baby shower and I ate a half of one. and then I ate the other half. and then I ate half of another one. So the original cleanse has been put on the back burner and the new cleanse is presented!!
I now struggle through my work days, trying to get anything and everything done... with an impossible deadline of Friday, and then I fly out of here as quickly as possible at 5 o'clock and I cleanse...
Yesterday my husband took me straight from work to Barnes and Noble to read crafty books and magazines while drinking a raspberry italian soda and eating a blueberry scone with sugar crystals around the edges.
So I urge all of those of you who have been hesitant to try a cleanse... try this one! Cleanse your mind of frustration and stress. Unwind. Eat a blueberry scone, and do whatever you want! Stress is never worth it!
What do YOU do to cleanse?

a fulfilling weekend for sure...

Happy Mother's Day! Although I am no mother yet, just a mother to be someday, this is what my husband gave me for mother's day!!





Do you see my beautiful garden? This is my first year with a garden and I am ecstatic! I just made one little 4' X 4' box and I think it's perfect, who knows, I may have a black thumb. The spots with no plant or anything are items planted from seed so we'll see in a few weeks if anything good happens, I 'll keep you posted a few times throughout the summer!! I know you can't tell but the white bandana is actually soaking wet with cold water, it was so hot today somewhere near 90 and for an Alaskan girl that's pretty hot!!
My cleanse is going okay, not easy as I hoped it would be, you would think that if you only had to do something for two weeks it wouldn't be that hard but no... It is! Today was good though:

Breakfast: Glass o' rice milk, again we are always running late!
Lunch: divine berry smoothie with blackberries, strawberries, apples, peaches, ice, and rice milk, yum yum...
Dinner: Baked potato with butter, salt, pepper, turkey bacon, avocado, and tomato, yum again.
Dessert: I know I already had a smoothie once today but it was so hot, so I had another!

This week will be easier, Jordan and I made a goal to eat in every night. Tomorrow we have a lil family barbecue and will be having chicken and veggies, pretty good, and one night we will make sushi and who knows what else, maybe some big salads!
Happy Mothers Day to you mom, I love you!!

Day 3 Review...

Yesterday, Day 3, was pretty good. I feel like some of it was cheating but the most important part is that I really tried and was extra careful. I have been really hungry sometimes but it's kind of interesting to see how you're not as hungry as you think you are. Normally I would just find something to eat, but now I try and hold off and I'm usually just fine!

Breakfast: Rice Milk, I woke up late again today so had the same thing as well
Lunch: Chicken and All natural white corn organic tortilla chips (that might be cheating but I just needed something to put the chicken on.
Dinner: Sushi and Steamed Veggies.

Jordo wanted to go out for dinner so I said only if it was something I could eat, voila-SUSHI! I think Sushi is fine if you don't dip it in the soy sauce. We got a plate of steamed veggies with peanut sauce but I didn't eat much of the sauce. And then the big specialty roll we got had eel, avocado, shrimp (which I think is technically not allowed), rice, and I think that's all. It was soooo yummy. If we go out again this weekend we will do sushi again, I think it is the most justifiable.

We got an armoire for the bedroom last night! I am so excited, even Jordan said that because the jazz won, AND we have more closet space now, I can go thrifting today on my lunch! Yay! New (used) clothes here I come! The armoire was free from a friend that is moving to Texas this weekend, sad to see them go but what a beautiful going away gift they gave us!

Happy Thursday! All I had for breakfast again today was milk but lunch is looking to prove to be better, chicken and tomato, maybe?

The Most Beautiful....

Oh My Goodness!!!
Go look at her little girl clothing designs right now! I am inspired!! Not to mention aching to have a little baby girl now! I am SO going to dress my girls like that. I want to go home and make something right now, oh I am so so so inspired, you are amazing Gyl!!

Potatoes are My Heroes!

DAY 2:
So yesterday was day two and I think it went fairly well. I felt very hungry throughout the day and quite tired, but I think I'm almost used to the different foods... so here's the recap:

Breakfast: Brown Rice, Rice Milk, Cinnamon, Apple shavings, Almonds
Lunch: Tuna Fish with lemon juice and salt and pepper on Brown Rice Cakes with cucumber slices on top.
Dinner: Steak, Baked Potato, salad

Now dinner was awesome. I didn't love the steak, but it was the first grilling of the summer so I can forgive that. But the baked potato!!!! Ohhhhh, was that G-O-O-D!!!
Truly, I just put butter and salt and pepper on it and it was divine, definitely a winner on this cleanse in my book!

But I have to make a confession now, we had friends over for dinner so afterwards I made them vanilla ice cream sundaes and I had a lil bowl of vanilla ice cream. Oh man, it was soooo good. But I promise it won't happen again!!! (plus it was so small!)

Happy Wednesday!!!

I've been working hard on some fun jewelry for my next update and I am seriously so excited about every piece!

Day One Review...

I know it is day two now but I think i will review each mid-morning for the day before.
Yesterday was the first day of Megs and my cleanse and boy was it tough. Here's what I ate:

Breakfast: actually I woke up late and hadn't gone shopping for the cleanse so I went hungry for the morning!! oops!

Lunch: two whole grain brown rice cakes with cucumber, tomato, and a little but of muenster cheese on them, although I'm not supposed to have cheese.

Snack: Almonds, yum... and lots of water

Dinner: We went climbing with some friends and then out to dinner but do not fear, we stopped at home on our way to dinner and I prepared me a little somethin'. Avocado and tomato with a touch of salt, pepper, and lemon juice on two rice cakes. Delicious!
Although I also snuck a few yummy pieces of chicken off my husband's plate at the Korean restaurant we were at, yummm!

That is all for day one!! Today is looking brighter and I feel cleaner already.
For breakfast I had brown rice, apple shavings, almonds, cinnamon, and rice milk. It made my tummy a little nauseous but I think that was just cause I was eating it while we were in the car and my love had the heater on too high...
Happy Tuesday!!

Cleanse Crazy!!!

Good Morning and a Happy Monday to everyone!!
So my sister Megan and I have been reading about cleanses lately, thinking of some as ridiculous, and others as quite brilliant. And so we are going to do a cleanse over the next two weeks, or 12 days to be exact. I don't know what it's called, but it's the same one my naturopathic doctor put me on a few years ago just to clean out my system.
Basically you cut sugars and dairy and processed foods and such, email me if you want the details.
But we will both be bloggin' our daily food intake and how we're doin'... So join in or just sit back and relax and let the cleansing begin!!!

oh- the photo was taken of me, rappelling off of Corona Arch in Moab, Utah last weekend, it was a beautiful beautiful day!!