I want these things so bad!

I have always SUCKED at doing my hair. I've always wondered how all the cute girls with cute hairstyles got their hair to do certain things, including being big and volumous. These fabulous little contraptions have given me an answer. I think I'll add these to my little list of things I'm going to do soon as part of my self-makeover. Oh, I don't think I told you - I'm getting a haircut in a couple of weeks! Woohoo!

And yes, I like the "Utah bump." I think it looks cute.

I am sick.

Sicker than I've been in years. Yesterday I had my fair share of barfing. Ten times. That's right, I barfed my guts out TEN TIMES yesterday. It was unbelievable. Poor Brett, is all I can say. Oh, and the cats kept sniffing my face. Freaks. I've been extremely dizzy. My equilibrium is all out of whack - just standing up or turning my head causes me to loose my balance. We think it's either just the flu or some knarly food poisoning, although I don't know what I could have eaten that was bad for me. Today I'm much better. My stomach is tollerating crackers and juice and tea. I'm pretty hungry but I don't know if I could/should eat anything substantial yet. Oh man, a Greek salad from Islands with extra feta and calamatas sounds soooooo good right now. Maybe by the time Brett's done with work today I'll be able to eat something. I'll have him bring me a Greek.

And no, I'm not pregnant.

Anyway, I really like me new background. It reminds me of this game that we downloaded onto the PS3.

I love spring. It's practically here. I even spent some time on the beach a few days ago with my friend Ivy and got a little burnt. Winter didn't seem that long this year, and that's fine with me. I only like winter at Christmastime, and after that, I have no other use for it. Hopefully, this spring will bring some opportunities for me businesswise. Maddy and I have a HUGE project coming up and we're having a lot of fun planning it. Keep an eye out on my photography blog for bits and pieces of it. (And, those of you reading this blog who are part of the project, please stay mum on the subject for now. We want to come out with it as a huge suprise. )

Maddy and I REALLY want to go to the NorCal Pirate Festival this year. We are even planning on dressing up. We went to a lot of renaissance and celtic fairs and Scottish Rites festivals growing up. We've always made fun of the people who dress up for them, but at the same time have always wanted to wear cool costumes for them. So, this year, its happening. We are going to make some awesome costumes, try to drag B along with us as well as a few friends and family, and have fun being the nerds that we have been denying all these years. My costume will be reminiscent of an 18th century English lady (think Elizabeth Swann). I tried to convince Maddy to have a similar costume, but NOOOOOOOO, she wants to be a wench. Whatever. She's a freak, I know. We'll blog the progress of our costumes as we make them. For starters, this is the pattern I will be using and altering a bit, just for the corset part. For the dress, I'll use this pattern. And this is my ultimate goal. What do you think? Can I pull it off?

I am trying really hard to pump myself up to work hard with all three jobs during the next few months. I'm just going to look down and not even look up until my bank account is overflowing with money. I want the bank people to call me and say, "Morgan, we need you to open another account because your old checking account isn't big enough for your $900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000." I want to actually be able to use my discount here because they have soooooooo many cute clothes right now!!! Agh. It pains me. I miss shopping so bad. And I'm tired of renting.

And I need to spend some money on my appearance, because boy oh boy, I am blah lately!
(The new contact lens sauciness only lasted for a couple days.) I need a makeover! And a diet. Today, I downed one of these all by me self while waiting for Brett to get done with work. It was delicious, and worth it, but by the time you all read this post, I will have done at LEAST 100 crunchies. And tomorrow, I will run. I'll run like a mile. I'm telling you all this because I want you to hold me to it. I want you all to leave harrassing comments if I don't go running and do like a million crunchies - EVERY DAY! (haha, yeah right.) By summertime, I plan on looking like THIS. Yeah yeah yeah, unrealistic, I know. But a girl's gotta dream, right? I gotta have a goal, yes?

Blah blah blah.

No news, really. Well, actually, I'm starting a new job at California Pizza Kitchen. I know, I know, I swore I would never go back to the restaurant biz, and I forsake my Shoes for Crews and order pad. But then, January hit. Well, actually, my stupidity hit. I don't know what I was thinking, thinking that two stupid, minimum wage retail jobs would cut it. I guess I thought that I would instantly create a huge network of clientelle and have weddings to shoot every weekend and never have to fill out another job application again. Not so. So anyway, I was working what felt like a ton, especially in December. Victoria's Secret and Williams-Sonoma were both really busy, and I never wanted for hours. However, the paychecks were still less-than-satisfactory, since I was just making minimum wage plus some change.

Then comes January.

As soon as Christmas was over, business dropped - big time - in the retail industry. I haven't been scheduled to work at WS in about a month. They do these things called "on-calls," where you have to call two hours before the start of that shift and see if they need you or not. Technically, my position at WS is called a "casual associate," so they can schedule me as little or as much as they want to. Well, all I've gotten is on-calls, and they haven't had me come in for about a month now. VS still scheduled me here and there each week, but they didn't have the hours to give to us, so I was lucky that I got any at all.

Ideally, I'd work at Islands, since I know the menu and everything. But, since Brett's a manager there, and corporate policy says a manager cannot date or be married to an employee, I can't work there. Lame. And since we're sharing a car right now, it makes things a lot easier that we both already work at the mall. Luckily, there are other restaurants at the Del Monte Center. One of Brett's bartenders also works at CPK, and he got me the job. They say that the servers there are making decent money. So yeah. I'm a waitress again. Yippy skippy.

Meg, I loved that post about Britney Spears! May I suggest a replacement? This one dances WAY better, she doesn't embarrass herself publicly, and she actually writes her own music! She is a little liberal politically, but hey, we can't all be perfect, right? haha... Oh yeah, and she can actually sing, and doesn't just breathe and hiccup into the mic. And I love her. And I love this song. It's probably one of the prettiest songs I've ever heard. I like to sing it. Singing along with her songs helps my spanish accent, too. Her hips just don't lie! They never do! Ever! What more of an example could you want than a high-profile girl who is proud of her non-washboard stomach and small boobs? I really just got in the mood for this music video and wanted an excuse to blog about it. Thanks Meg, thanks! Sample this:

Check 'em out!

Morgan Werner Photography

Forget my last post!

I got it! I love it! Thanks, Jenn!

Attention Cute Bloggers!

I need your help.

You all keep switchin' up your blog layouts/backgrounds, and they look darling! I REALLY want to change mine, but I'm scared. Last time I tried to change it, MONTHS ago, it erased everything from my blog - all my posts, all my link lists, everything - and I had to start over. I've been scared to try again, now that there is so much stuff on my blog and and I don't want to lose any of it.

How do you girls keep that from happening to your blog when you change your backgrounds?

I can see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Long story short, I lost my glasses. I'm blind. Can't see without lenses of some sort. Some of you know about the mishap inwhich I lost my glasses. I will not elaborate here. I don't want to think about it. Just know that it was traumatic.

Anyway, in order for me to drive, I need to see. Since our life sucked without me doing some driving sometimes, we looked into replacing my specs. I fell in love with some darling, black-rimmed Ralph Lauren frames that cost around $300. We geared up to save up. But then, it occurred to us (him). Contacts are actually cheaper!

So, I got some.

At first, it took me at least 20 minutes to get them in, and I was still pretty conscious of them throughout the day. That was two weeks ago. Now, I can get them in in about 5 minutes, and I forget that I even have them on. I even fell asleep in them one night because I couldn't feel them and forgot about them.

Wearing contacts is just what I needed. I used to not even bother putting on makeup since it couldn't even be seen behind my glasses, but then I felt frumpy all the time. I didn't even do anything with my hair, because it's a waste to flat iron one's hair without a matching face of makeup. Then, if I was ugly above the neck, what was the point in grooming anything below? What was the point in shaving anything? Why should I put the effort into a pedicure or manicure? If I hadn't maintained my pedicure, then there was NO way that I was wearing heels, which therefore means no skirts. Thus began my downward spiral of frumpiness.

So, I am hereby thankful for contacts, for I have gotten my groove back. Watch out, Brett! I'm feeling saucy!

Come see! Come See!

Morgan Werner Photography

Major holidays stress me out.

I'm just gonna skip over Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. I'm just gonna pretend they didn't happen. I'm working two retail jobs and they both worked wonders at squashing my Christmas spirit into the ground. Next year will be different. And we definitely won't be going to bed at 8 or 9 on New Years Eve, either. Enough of this workaholic crap. I've had enough.

Anyway, moving on.

So I really want a change with my hair. I'll be getting contacts soon, and since I won't be wearing glasses every waking hour anymore, I want to do something else with my hair, like bangs, perhaps. I'm thinking something like.......... this:

or this:

ooooooooor this:

But I think this is my favorite style (just the bangs, not the rest of the haircut):

What y'all think?

Look guys! I did a project!

I'm a real homemaking housewife now!

We finally got a picture of Christ for our house, and we needed a frame. We had an old frame of Brett's that was the perfect size for the matted painting, but it was an ugly, light wood finish (I hate light wood. Blegh). So, I painted the frame black and it was ready to help Jesus look good on my wall! As if Jesus needs any help lookin' good.

Before:

After:

I'm so proud of myself! Those of you who have the pleasure of listening to me complain about money know what a hard time I have with decorating on a budget, so it's nice to put something on my walls now and then. Next will be a picture of the temple. I'll probably just use the one of us standing on the pedestal in front of the temple on our wedding day. I also need to get our marriage certificate from the temple framed along with our Proclamation To the World.

The Perfect Pantry... or so they say

I found this interesting tonight while I was waiting for the ground beef to thaw out under the faucet. It seems like a useful checklist. Do you agree with it? Do you think that all of these things are necessary? Are you even lucky enough to have a pantry? I sure as heck am not. But still, let's see what I've managed to accumulate.

I actually have all of these:
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
Vegetable Oil
All-Purpose Flour
Granulated Sugar

What? Broth? Ha. I don't even know what to use broth for:
Chicken Broth
Beef Broth
Canned tomatoes
Tomato sauce
Tomato paste
Can/jar of marinara sauce
Canned beans: white, black, kidney
Tuna

I ALWAYS have spaghetti and sauce, and we happen to have a bunch of rice that Brett bought, but the rest are a negative:
Spaghetti
Linguine
Corkscrew pasta
Penne or other short pasta
Egg noodles
Long-grain white rice
Jasmine or basmati rice
Lentils
Split peas
Dried bread crumbs

I never buy onions. I hate them. But I do have potatoes and garlic!
Potatoes
Onions
Garlic

We have various hot sauces and soy sauce, and rice vinegar:
Distilled white vinegar
Balsamic vinegar
Apple cider vinegar
Soy sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Salsa
Hot sauce

Cinnamon, garlic powder and basil? Check!:
Dried basil
Bay leaves
Cayenne
Chili powder
Cumin
Cinnamon
Garlic powder
Oregano
Paprika

Who doesn't always have eggs, milk and butter? But mustard? Yeah, we definitely have about 20 different mustards that Brett "collects." Blegh!:
Eggs
Milk
Butter or margarine
Ketchup
Mustard
Mayonnaise
Parmesan cheese
Other cheese

Ground beef is a-plenty in our freezer, thanks to Uncle Adam and "Chocolate the Cow!" (R.I.P. Chocolate):
Frozen corn
Frozen spinach
Frozen peas
Ground beef
Chicken breasts

So, it looks like I have a little bit of shopping to do. Honestly, I probably have room for most of the things that I'm lacking. I've never felt the need for that many pastas in the pantry. I always have spaghetti and bow-ties, but all the other ones- why? I definitely need a good, comprehensive spice rack. I only buy spices and herbs as I need new ones for recipes. I believe that the first group with the baking supplies should also include baking soda, baking powder, shortening, vanilla extract, brown sugar, cocoa powder, and anything else needed for basic cookies, brownies, and cakes. I also try to always have a stash of chocolate chips in the freezer, and instead of frozen corn and peas, we always have broccoli.

So how 'bout you? How's your pantry?

The rivetting conclusion to the end-of-summer saga! (It's actually pretty boring. I'm mostly just writing it for journaling reasons.)

I believe I left off at the part about how we got home from an 8+ hour drive from Oregon, unloaded the Jeep and took showers, re-packed and got BACK in the car, right? Well, It is true. We got back to Sacramento in the afternoon, and were only home for about an hour, I think. (Moving was such a long, drawn-out event for us this time that it is all a bit of a blur!) We had to get back on the road and head down to Lompoc (Santa Barbara County), where Brett's family lives, because for the next two-and-a-half weeks, Brett's mom would be SO kindly taking care of our cats for us. Brett had to report to the restaurant hiring site in about a week. (Before the restaurant opens, the managers hire their whole staff at an office somewhere near the restaurant. In this case, Islands is in a mall, so they just used a vacant calendar store as the hiring site for about six weeks before the actual restaurant was open for business.) So, Brett HAD to be here, in Monterey, by a certain date, but our apartment wasn't ready for us to move in until about two-and-a-half-weeks after that date. Sooooooo, Islands was nice enough to put us up in a hotel for that time so that we could be there on time. Since we were in a hotel, we couldn't have the cats with us, so Judy took care of them for us. Thank you, Judy!

Anyway, so we got to Lompoc by about midnight that night, visited with Brett's family for a couple of hours, got the cats settled in at Judy and Larry's, and then we hit the road again!

Here are the not-so-happy cats in their crate on the way to Lompoc. They were so noisy! Apparently, they don't like traveling.

The MUCH happier cats in their bedroom window at Judy's.

Next, we needed to go to San Diego. Brett had a storage unit down there full of his old household items from before he moved to Sacramento, three years ago. Since we had been paying rent for the storage unit, for much too long, and we needed a few things out of the unit, we cleaned out the whole thing and ended our lease. Not to mention, we got rid of lots of old stuff. We all know how good it feels to purge old stuff to make room for the new stuff!

The wonderful traffic between Los Angeles and San Diego.

We stayed in San Deigo for only one night, but we made sure to see a couple of Brett's old friends while we were there. We had some fantastic sushi, walked around an AMAZING mall (every store I could want in one location!) and saw a movie with Misato. Brett's buddy, Trevor, met the three of us at Bennigan's or appetizers. He was so kind as to let us crash on his couch that night. The next day we headed straight to the storage unit and got to work loading up the U-Haul. As soon as the truck was loaded, we got back on the dusty trail, Sacramento bound. We finally got to our apartment at about 6 am. I can't remember when we slept, but I'm sure we took a nap that day at some point. That afternoon and evening, we loaded up the U-Haul with the rest of our apartment. My brothers, Harrison, Houston, and Peyton, and their friend David all helped us. We took the next day off, hanging out with my family. Bright and early the following morning, we headed to Monterey with Uncle Adam. That drive seemed very short compared to the Oregon and San Diego drives! Once we got here, the three of us unloaded the U-Haul into another shorage unit since we were staying in a hotel for the next three weeks.

A couple weeks later, we finally got our apartment! We got to work, packing up both of our cars with stuff and making probably four or five trips to get almost everything to the apartment. We were lucky enough to have a few guys from the Elder's Quorum at church help us move the big furniture with their trucks. That afternoon, Brett's parents came to help us get settled in and bring the cats to us. It was so nice to have them here to keep us company and help us do the basic move-in chores like putting contact paper in all the cupboards and drawers, helping us to shift around all the boxes as we got more things set up and putting together our bed. We loved having them around and were sad when they left, but we were so grateful for the time we had with them that weekend.

So now we're here, in beautiful Monterey! Well, actually, we live in Marina, about eight miles north of Monterey, but it's all part of the same area. We absolutely love it here. The weather is perfect- it hasn't gone below the 70's or gone abobe the mid-80's. Fabulous. Our apartment is litterally just a block or two from the beach. Down the road a mile or two from us is the big Marina State Beach with a parking lot, restrooms and benches where everybody goes with their dogs and kids to play. But our beach is really quiet. To get there you have to go back behind our neighborhood on a really quiet backstreet. You see a little sign saying, "Marina State Beach," and there's room for about three or four cars to park along the street. You have to climb over the sand dune (which is a small trek), but when you get to the top, you see the ocean! Once you get down to the bottom of the dune, you see that the beach is really quite private. I've never seen more than a couple other people there at the same time as me, and they're usually a few hundred yards away anyway. I just love it. There is nothing like being able to just walk to the ocean!

So anyway, we're very happy here. The restaurant is very busy and keeping Brett very busy. Victoria's Secret has its challenges which is nice, and I'm soon starting a job at William Sonoma, so I'll be a busy girl soon! I've never really worked retail, so we'll see how I like it!

That about wraps it up! I'll try to make my next posts a little more interesting... I promise!

Part 2 of our end-of-the-summer adventures

Ok, so I showed you the horses. For the first day that we were visiting with my Grandma in Oregon, my uncle, Adam, was in town from Sacramento, too. So, before we took him to the airport, we all went and got hotdogs at Roake's. I'd heard my grandpa talk about this place so much when I was a little girl. He loved, and I mean LOVED Roake's Hotdogs. I was excited to finally try one for myself. I'll admit, it wasn't bad! They put a special, secret sauce of some sort on the 'dogs and that makes them extra tasty. Uncle Adam loves them a lot too, and I think he and Grandma went out for hotdogs two or three other times during the weekend that he was in town.

After our hotdog tasting, we took Uncle Adam to the airport to go back home to Sacramento. It was fun to have him there with us for a good part of the day! Next, we went to visit my Aunt Mia and Uncle Lance, my cousin, Jeff, and his new wife, and their darling new baby. In fact, Jeff's wedding that weekend is why Uncle Adam was there. We, unfortunately, missed the wedding by one day! Our jobs and packing up our apartment just wouldn't permit us to leave a day earlier. I was so sad to miss the wedding, but excited that Jeff wasn't leaving on his honeymoon for another week, so I could see him. Here is Aunt Mia and the baby of the hour:

Look at this crying face! So perfectly scrunched up! I can't get enough!

On our way back to Grandma's from Aunt Mia's, we came upon one of the most beautiful rainbows I have ever seen. Both ends of it could be seen, and it was double and triple- arched when you looked at it from certain angles. Very cool! My lens was just wide enough that I could fit the whole thing into some frames. Check this out!

We had so much fun with my grandma. She is one of my favorite people in the whole, wide, world. She is always a pleasure to be around. Never a dull moment!

Our next stop was Astoria, way up at the tip, top corner of western Oregon. This is where they filmed "The Goonies." It is a beautiful, costal town. We stayed there for one night at a KOA campsite. It was a lot of fun roasting hotdogs and playing card games with just the two of us. Here is a picture of our campsite. It looked like a corral. Weird, but whatever, I couldn't complain since I had electricity, a bathroom with showers twenty feet away from us, and a wi-fi connection. I was farting around on the internet while we were camping. Great fun. If you can't tell, I'm not really one for roughing it.

Here's my cute husband tending to dinner:It was soooooo good! I never used to like hotdogs, but I'm starting to like them now!The next morning we hit the road to go down to Bandon in southwestern Oregon. Here's what most of the drive looked like:When we got to Bandon, we were most excited to stop here. This is what we saw there:

One happy kitty

One HUGE set of paws

Lots of these little cuties. They were so little that I could have easily smuggled one out of the park in my purse.

With their mamas

Many funny faces

Eeyore

This is who we played with

This was our campsite in Bandon. So pretty and green. We had some amazing burgers there.

The next morning we headed back down to Sacramento. We unloaded the jeep of our camping gear, took showers, re-packed our suitcases, and jumped right back in the car so we could get to his parents' house in Lompoc (Santa Barbara County) by midnight. We LOVE driving for hours and hours at a time!

Part 3 coming soon!

"Well, as long as you're happy..."

So I got a job at Victoria's Secret. It's ok. I get an ok discount, but we can't combine it with sale prices, so that's kinda lame. There is a lot of really cute stuff there, and during my whole shift I walk around looking at stuff that I want to blow my paycheck on, so it's kinda dangerous.

Well, today, a co-worker was chatting with me. I need to mention that she is of a hispanic background. She was commenting on my wedding rings and asking how long I've been married, how long we've been together, etc. Then, out of the blue, she asks me what nationality my husband is. I didn't know why she asked, but I told her, "He's white." Then her whole demeanor changed, she kind of got stiff, and she said, "Well, that's nice. As long as you're happy. That's all that matters, right?" Then she suddenly walked away.

Um, ok?

What we've been up to for the last month or so... (Part 1: The Horses)

We have had a very busy end to our summer. It all started when we had to pack up our apartment on top of the three jobs between us, and the six photo shoots that I had to process. So, we finally got our apartment packed up and we took off to Oregon. First stop on the itinerary: Grandma's House!

When I was a litle girl I used to call this house, "Grandpa's Castle." Grandma and Grandpa built this house themselves. It was originally just the A-frame part that you see on the left side of he house, and then they added the rest of it on years later. It always seemed so big to me. In fact, the whole farm seemed so big to me. I guess it really had been a long time since I'd been there (about ten years, actually), because now that I'm bigger, everything seems so much smaller than I remember.

This is the beautiful forest drive up to the farm.

My favorite part of the farm: the horses!!!! (Please, pay no attention to the ugly girl in the pictures. Not my shining moment as far as looking fabulous was concerned.) This is me (ugh) and ol' Huck. He's a good boy, and he looks pretty good for being in his mid-twenties.

Well, he looked pretty good, except for the Rick James hair. His mane was so tangled and full of burs. I would have combed it out, but we didn't have time. That probably would have taken a good two hours to fix his mane. Maddy and I used to spend hours out in the paddocks with the horses grooming them. Unfortunately, this time, Brett and I had to take off. Someday soon, I will go up there again and give all the horses baths and clean out their hooves and brush them to a show-shine. Heck, I might even braid their manes for old time's sake.

Rick James:

Comet is such a sweetheart.

Horses are not very good at taking turns.


My Strider is a handsome boy. Please excuse my terrible, frumpy posture.




Then I took Huck for a ride. He wassn't very happy about being taken out of retirement, so his ears were back the whole time.

We can't forget about our wonderful Skala girl. She's almost thirty! She is the most well-trained horse I have ever riden. You say, "Skala, turn left," and she turns left! You say, "Walk" and she walks, "trot" and she trots. Its awesome. But, she's just so old I felt bad riding her, so I didn't ride her this time. I would have riden Strider, but last time I got on him he threw me and I broke my arm, so.... yeah. Bad idea.

More of our trip when I get home from work tonight!