Okay, so we live in Idaho...

In the last couple of weeks we have gone from having weather below zero for four days, to three solid days of snow, to two solid days of rain, and finally, the last twelve hours we have had very thick fog.

Yeah.

Whatever.

Book Review: The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

NOTE: ALL couples should read this book. If you're not a couple STILL read this book. It will help you in the future AND with current relationships....with whoever! Seriously, it is that good.

Stephen and I received this book as a wedding gift two years ago. It has taken us two years to finally sit down and read it together. I LOVE THIS BOOK AND I RECOMMEND IT TO EVERYONE!!! Males included.

The book begins by talking about how every person has a love tank that needs to filled. The book proceeds to teach how different people have different types of love languages that fill their love tanks. It is very interesting. It has made me look at my relationship with, not only my husband, but with the many different people I have in my life. It helps me realize why people do the things they do. Definitely a good read.

The MAN of the Hour

Stephen played AWESOME tonight at his basketball game AND he got an 82.5% on his Economics test. By the way his teacher is the most difficult teacher in the entire world. I think that she's disappointed that she got rejected from an Ivy League School.

I LOVE YOU HONEY!

Christmas Lights

Stephen and I bought our first set if Christmas lights for the outside of the house. It'a been so much fun to decorate! We started putting up our Christmas lights the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It took us four hours to get three quarters of the lights up. It wasn't until the next Saturday we were able to finish the last of it in an hour and half. Stephen takes such good care of our house! Doesn't it look great!

Never go to Walmart on Black Friday...

We were in Pocatello with my parents this year for Black Friday. We didn't have anything really big that we wanted to get, but I HAD to go to Fred Meyer for the half off sock sale. I need new tights!

The first store we had on our list was Walmart...I know, I know, I'm not a huge fan, but...ok no excuses. We were at Walmart. THAT PLACE WAS INSANE!!!!!! I really cannot put enough question marks on that thing. We arrived at Walmart at 4:50 and were there when they did the countdown and unwrapped the deals. Within 10 minutes the entire from of the store was crammed with people. We couldn't even get out of the store! I hate Walmart...grrrr.

Honestly, I can't even remember all the stores that we went to. Except for Home Depot. Because of the pictures. We were really tired and bored. We woke up at 4:00am.

After Home Depot we went to breakfast at Perkins. I had the best Eggs Benedict. Black Friday was so worth it after I had that breakfast. Wahoo!!

Thanksgiving Football, Thanksgiving Dinner, Thanksgiving Games

I LOVE Thanksgiving! We began the morning by making a great breakfast together. Just before breakfast Dad sat us down and read us the story of how the pilgrims came to America. He told us of all the hard times that they had coming to a new land and trying to start everything new. He told us of how the Indians helped the pilgrims and of their first Thanksgiving.

The thing I remembered most was the reason that the pilgrims left. They left to be able to have religious freedom! The pilgrims first left England and traveled to Holland. There they were able to practice their religion, but their children began to practice Dutch traditions. The Dutch at that time were very frivolous and focused on worldly things. The pilgrims were worried that their children would forget their religious traditions, therefore they left Holland and traveled to America. This made me think of how we, as Americans have forgotten that part of the story.

As I listened to my dad tell that story, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I LIVE IN AMERICA AND I HAVE MY FREEDOM!!! I am also especially grateful for the opportunity to practice my belief. I know that we have a prophet on the earth today, President Thomas S. Monson. I know Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet and was given the power to translate the Book of Mormon. I know that the Book of Mormon is a second witness of Jesus Christ of the people in the Americas. I know the Bible is also the word of God. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is Christ's church restored on the earth. IT IS TRUE!!!

I have been so grateful to celebrate the Thanksgiving Holiday!

After the story of Thanksgiving and breakfast, we played football. According to Stephen, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without football. Aunt Kelley and Uncle Evan's family came up to join us. We split up the teams pretty evenly and had a pretty good game. I just thought it was hilarious when my team would huddle us and come up with a game plan. I had no idea what they were talking. With all of their football jargon, they might as well have been speaking in Chinese. I do have to brag about one thing...I TACKLED MY DAD!!! It was supposedly touch football, but I figure that they wouldn't yell at a five foot one hundred pound girl...Here are the pictures of our wonderful event.

Here's a picture of the whole clan. Don't we look awesome!! I was freezing...I'm the one in the hoodie and the huge Denver Broncos coat...it was my dads.

Of course, you can't talk about Thanksgiving without mentioning the amazing Thanksgiving Dinner. My favorite Thanksgiving food is the marshmallow covered sweet potatoes. I LOVE THEM!!! There is so much butter and brown sugar in that dish...These pictures are all a little odd, so take them for what they are. Pictures taken around the dinner table are just that.

After dinner, we had game time. If anyone has any desire to learn what chicken foot is, just come on over. The game that is pictured emimated from the minds in the pictures. I'm guessing that it was some sort of cowboys and indians. They used rubberbands to knock over each others little action figures. They also had dominos to be little forts to protect the action figures. First you had to knock over the dominos and then the action figures. There is a wonderful video of the game below.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

BBC

Okay, I totally stole this from Emily's blog...I really wanted to have the list for myself! I love reading books and this is a list I would like to help me keep it up.

BBC Reading List Share

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? Instructions:Look at the list and mark those you have read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
-LOVE Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
-Yeah, started this one quite a few times as well. I just can't finish it!

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
-Loved, BUT it took me about 100 pages before I really got into it.

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
K. Come on. If you haven't read these, you just need to. My high school AP English teacher refused to read these at first because they weren't up to her literary expectation. She picked the first one up and then couldn't put them down.

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
-Really liked this one.

6 The Bible -
-Still haven't finished the Old Testament

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
-This is one I really want to read!

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
-Great book.

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
-Yeah...haven't read this one either. Maybe we should just get rid of movies. I have a hard time reading a book after I have seen the movie.

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
-Not a fan...

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
-This one is a little too controversial...I'm not so sure.

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
-I seriously have not read this?!

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
-I've started reading this at least 5 times. I really need to just read it, It is supposed to be amazing!

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
-This is my favorite book. The movie's got nothin'.

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - As Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
-Bleh

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
-Awesome book!

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X
-Loved!

I really thought that this was quite an interesting list. Here goes keeping up on my "X's". If my math is correct I am at 19.

Job 4 Me

I finally have a job! I've been on at a temp agency for a l o n g time and I finally got a call. I had almost completely forgotten about it when they called me last Monday to ask if I wanted to go in for an interview. I went to the interview on Tuesday and was called later that day and said that I got the job! They wanted me to start the next day. It went really fast and I was a little shell shocked after the whole experience.

I work at another subcontracting company called TML or Service Experts. They install the heating and cooling for homes or businesses. After I'm done working I'm going to be able to build my own house! I started working for an electrician, went to insulation, and am currently in heating and cooling. I will be working primarily in the new construction residential billing.

I have only been at work for four days and I am quite impressed with how they do business. The work environment is so friendly. I really like the people that I work with. There are a ton of people and remembering names is going to be an issue. This company is all for the customer. They are also very good about keeping up appearances. This is the first construction company that I have worked for that has had a dress code. I think it is really nice, the workers have dress codes as well. They want us all to look professional. Wouldn't you be more likely to get heating and cooling from people who look like they know what they are doing?

All in all I feel really good about where I am at. Yeah for good feelings!

Basketball Tournaments Begin!

Stephen has started playing in a city league basketball team. There first game was last night at 9pm at the Meridian Middle School. It was a lot of fun to watch him play. Kenna's husband, Marc, also plays on the team. To be completely honest, I didn't watch a whole lot of the game. I was busy talking Kenna's ear off...she didn't get as much homework done as she probably would have liked. I'm just glad that I have a basketball wife buddy!

Stephen did have a couple of really good plays. It was funny to watch him interact with his teammates. He had a couple of really good fouls...sorry I didn't get pictures. I'll bring my camera next time.

If anyone wants to come watch their amazing team...they won by the way...the Dharma Initiave will be playing most Wednesday nights at 9pm. Come and watch them play their hearts out!

Curtains-a-la-mode

The title to my blog may seem a little odd. "Curtains-a-la-mode". When you see the awesomeness that is my curtains, you will understand the blog title.

I am an HGTV watcher. To many men strewn across the country, this is probably a very bad addiction that should be curbed. My husband is one of those men. Every time that he comes home and I have a new idea for our house, he groans and states, "You are not allowed to watch any more HGTV." I'm not a very good wife for completely ignoring his demand. I AM ADDICTED!!! (If Stephen had known this would happen when he really wanted to get DISH, he might not have ever signed up.)

One of my latest projects, care of HGTV, has been curtains in my living room. I really didn't know what I wanted to do and so I started looking at window treatment books in the numerous visits to my favorite sewing stores. Finding the one that I wanted, I went to a sister in my ward, who is a professional seamstress, Deana, to learn the ropes of curtain making. Lookie at what I came up with:

In talking to Deana, she told me to begin by mounting a board in the studs above my windows. I went to Home Depot a bought a 10 foot long mdf board. The board needed to be about nine feet long and I wanted to have some sort of decorative edging around it. I called another sister in my ward, Tiffany, to help me out. She is really good with wood and has a lot of tools to get things done. As a side note, Tiffany put her entire deck in by herself. She also did her kitchen back splash on her own. She's amazing. I took the board to her house and she cut it down and used her router to make it pretty around the edges.

I spent forever looking for the hooks that I wanted . I couldn't seem to find them anywhere. In talking to Kenna, I finally found the ones. Thank you Craft Warehouse.

Here are my curtains before hanging them up. Isn't the material SOOO cute! They had a screaming deal at Home Fabrics.

Here is one of the panels hanging on the wall. Wow...I can't tell you what a difference it made to our living room. It actually made it look like a home rather than a house. That sounds a little weird, but it is true.

Here's the finished product! I'm so excited! I was so proud of myself for taking charge and getting the whole thing accomplished on my own. They are hiding behind the couch, so it is kind of hard to see them. I gave you a few different shots.