Breast Cancer Awareness!

We had a SUPER fun night at Jenn's meeting. We donated 10% of the proceeds to the Mary Kay foundation - which is an AMAZING foundation. Let me just tell you a little bit why. 

• Last year alone we donated over $5 million dollars to cancer research.
• The Mary Kay Foundation was created in 1996, and has awarded $18 million to cancer researchers and related causes throughout the United States.  So every time every you support a Mary Kay Consultants,  not only are you supporting her business but women around the world you don’t even know!!
• Since the Foundation’s inception in 1996, it has awarded $31 million to shelters and programs addressing domestic violence prevention.
• You can find out more at http://www.marykayfoundation.org/Pages/Home.aspx

 We had a lot of fun things in support of this foundation. We did lip personality tests! Super fun and weirdly right on! Kiss a piece of paper and see what shape your lips are. Match them with the personality paper lips and read what it says. If you want to see what yours says, let me know :)


We also had all the guests spin our Mary Kay prize wheel to win free stuff! How awesome is that!?!

 Yummy pink and red snacks were served. We had these amazing red velvet mini cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. They were to die for. Some yummy red fruit and fruit dip. I love our Mary Kay nights!

And of course, we always get to make new friends who are positive and uplifting, sharp and successful. You can never have too many friends who have those qualities. NEVER! I love my Mary Kay life. It is never ever something I thought I'd have, but now it's something I will NEVER give up.. EVER.

Mouse Droppings

A couple weeks ago, I opened the pantry to get out the sugar to find some mouse droppings near by. Luckily my mom was wise enough to tell me to put all of my baking stuff in containers. So, the mouse didn't get into anything, but an extra rice bag we had.

To the store I went to find some great mouse traps. I'd never had to deal with a mouse before, but I got a pack of four and put them around where I could see the mouse was hanging out. A week went by and nothing! Nothing in the traps only more mouse droppings. I couldn't figure out where he was. Sneaky little bugger. 

I'm not all that terrified of them. A few years ago I was watching my sisters rental house down in Utah while her family went on a vacation. She told me she had some mice and put up some traps. I was in a room watching a movie when her dogs started making A LOT of noise and barking. As I walked into the kitchen so see what was going on I saw the dogs pushing around a mouse trap with their noses and a mouse stuck inside!! He was still alive and using one foot trying to get away. 

Not knowing at all what to do, I called my mom. She told me to take a glove and pick it up and throw the mouse away. While I was talking to her, one of the dogs actually picked up the mouse and started CHEWING on it! Poor mouse. Still living, I got it away from the dog and took it outside.. he was suffering and it was really sad. 

Needless to say, I don't want to make mice suffer. It isn't fun at all, poor things. So, about two weeks later I decided to make some cookies. I pulled out the oatmeal and the mouse SHOT out and ran behind the garbage can when I immediately moved the garbage and he dashed behind the stove. He had been behind the oatmeal munching on our rice the WHOLE TIME! I didn't see him again until...

I was napping on a Sunday. Great nap, you know those kind when you just feel so relaxed? I woke up to my husband holding the mouse in a towel right in front of my face! In my blurred wake up vision I couldn't tell what it was for a moment. But realized he had seen the mouse in our bathroom and caught it with a hand towel. Crazy! He was holding it and telling me it looked so cute. And I told him he needed to get rid of it. So, while STILL holding the thing he looks on the internet of what to do with it. It said if you put it outside, he'll just find his way back. If we wanted to kill it, we could put it in the freezer and freeze it to death or other torturous ideas. I wouldn't let him do anything like that. He decided to walk a block and a half a way to a parking lot and let it out there. 

We are now mouse free!!! Mice are SO persistent. They risk their lives to find food. Makes me wonder how dedicated we are to what we want in life.

Unplanned Road Trip

I had just moved to Salt Lake City, Utah to live with one of my amazing friends, Jessica. As I was talking to her on the phone one day, she asked if I wanted to come be her roommate. So, I packed up my stuff and moved down there to live with her. Yes, it was just that simple. I quit my job and left.

I had been looking for work for a couple months and was finding NOTHING. Jess worked at a restaurant about 20 minutes away and told me I should apply there. I told myself I would never ever be a server, but I needed some cash. My savings were being spent on my living and I needed something soon.

I went to apply and they interviewed me on Friday. I was to start work on Tuesday. I waited around as Jess was  finishing her shift. She was talking to one of her co-workers, John, about going to California and as we were about to leave she said, "Do you want to come to Cali with us this weekend? We are leaving at 7:00." My first instinct was to say no. But then I thought about it a little more and realized I had absolutely nothing to do until Tuesday when I would start working.

Needless to say, we went home, packed some bags, and met up with John at his house. Questions started to arise like, where will we stay? Where are we going exactly? John got online to talk to this couple who played W.O.W. with him. They were a married couple living in Oceanside. He'd never met them before, only communicated with them through the game. And Oceanside was our destination.

We started driving and Jess got in touch with her friends who lived in Vegas. That night we stayed with them and hung out in Vegas for a while.

They made us the BEST spaghetti for lunch the next day. All I remember was that the girl put TONS of extra stuff in the sauce and made it taste absolutely amazing! The cool thing about Jess' friend and her husband was that she spoke Spanish and would talk only to their child in Spanish during the day until the husband would come home and then English was the language. I thought that was super smart.



We made it to Oceanside and stayed with the coolest, nicest family ever. They took us to the beach and we hung out all day Monday and started driving back Monday night. We literally drove all through the night because I was supposed to start work and we barely made it in time for me to go home, get cleaned up and go to work. Totally worth it.

I miss doing things like this! Thank you so much Jess for the amazing experiences and teaching me to be so spontaneous!

Evolution of Hair (mine to be exact)

Looking back through some old pictures I realized that changing my hair color is just this amazing part of myself that I really really like. There have been some that really did not look good, however. Like the blonde..
Awesome technology these days lets us put a picture up of ourselves and change our hair color without actually having to go through it. What a wonderful idea?? Will I ever go back to blonde.. no way. I actually made a song (back when I was learning the guitar) that has a line about me not wanting to be blonde again. I don't know what it is, but I really don't like it on me even thought it's technically my natural color.

Eww

You can't see very well, but this actually has dark red streaks.. it was really cool
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Dark with black streaks :)

If you got to the end of all these pictures, which hair color is your favorite? I'm going to change again soon, so I'll need some advice. :) 

(Almost all hair color and cut by Alysa Garvin Sessions) - not the blonde

European Farm Borders

Something that really stuck out to me about flying over Europe was the way their land and farms were bordered. I know it sounds weird that it would be interesting, but I noticed 3 major differences in 3 different countries.

Flying over Ireland the farm borders seemed to be mostly distinguished by small rock fences/walls. It was exactly that same way on land as well, but super cool looking from above. Rock walls for their livestock and their vegetation. 

When flying over England it appears their borders were mostly made up of trees and bushes for their farms. Still same sizes and green like Ireland, but yet different from above. 

I don't have any pictures from the actual plane though. Just from the buses and ground transportation. Plane pictures never really turn out that great anyway, right?

The other interesting country that looked similar was the Netherlands. Theirs were canals. A lot of water and very close to sea level, but divided up by small water canals or rivers I believe.

 These pictures are of course not of farm land, but I didn't happen to get any in the Netherlands. But you can just trust me on that :)


In the United States, however, it seems quite a bit different. You know - actual fences and man made provision. You would think that having it natural would be more beautiful and make a lot more sense. But since we do not have as much to work with, I believe we have improvised quite well with our fences and dirt roads. In the West anyway. Not really sure how they do it out on the East coast.

Buffalo on a Budget

Last night my husband and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings. It was his first time and he claims he doesn't really like wings, so I thought I needed to take him there so he could have a good experience.

 The server brought us all the sauces to taste. Before we chose I totally knew which one my husband would like. Honey BBQ :) By the way - their potato wedges ROCK! Who knew I'd love them so much :)

We shared some wings because even though it's the beginning of the month still, we've already spent our eating out budget. Yes, we have budgets. Reading Dave Ramsey puts a whole new light on things that are important and things that are not. We've decided that eating out is not that important. However, we did go out of town this month already and that's why we used it up so fast.

Earlier this year we spent 15 days in Europe and depleted our savings. Do I regret it? Not one bit!! Is it hard to build it back up, yes. I really wanted to go to Europe before we even thought of having kids because once that happens it's super hard to go on long vacations like that. It was super fun. If anyone wants me to post about Europe, please leave a comment below. If not, I won't worry about it :)