Magnets

I decided I wanted cute magnets. So why not make them right? A pretty fast, easy and cute craft that is also very practical... if you use magnets on your refrigerator like I do (for all of the wedding announcements and bridal & baby shower invitations).

The craft store makes it really easy for you to make your own magnets. They put everything you need in the same section. The glass circles, the glue & magnets. All you have to do it choose what you want to go in our magnets. Pictures? Cute scrapbook paper. I found mine online actually. In fact... now that I am looking at these pictures, I should have put an extra paper behind the cute paper so you didn't see the magnet on the back. I may redo that. Just make note of that in case you decide to make your own. :o)

I think they turned out cute though. Very fitting for my European Cafe themed kitchen.

Wisdom

As of this morning, the last of my wisdom is gone.

Why do we have Wisdom teeth if everyone needs to get them out? I guess in the stone age they would use them? Are they called Wisdom teeth because they grow in when you are older?

I'm not really sure... nor do I really care. All I care about it that I have had to deal with them since I was 13 years old.

When I was 13, I was preparing for braces (that I didn't end up getting until I was a freshman in college). In preparation for my braces I needed to go to the Oral Surgeon where I would be put to sleep and they would extract two top molars, my two bottom wisdom teeth (that would have grown in the wrong way) and my last baby tooth. They told me since they removed two molars from the top of my mouth that I would have room for my top wisdom teeth and they left them. I wish they would have just taken them out.

Fast forward in time 11 years. Now I am 24. My top Wisdom teeth have decided its time to grow in. I don't know if you guys know this.... but when teeth grow in, its painful. No wonder babies are so fussy. I was fussy when they were coming in. My jaw was always soar, I always wanted to be chewing gum back there. Not fun. But they grew in, and they grew in straight. I thought I was done.

Fast forward another 4 years. That brings us to today. My dentist has been bugging me for almost two years to get my wisdom teeth out because there is no point in having them. They are hard to clean and floss and will only cause me problems later. Its easier to get them out when you are young rather than waiting until you are older. Okay Okay. I get it. I will get them out... but if this is the case, why in the heck didn't they just pull them out when I was 13? When I was put to sleep... get it all over with. I don't know. But this morning I went to the dentist... a little worried of what it was going to be like for him to pull out my full grown teeth in the back of my mouth. He said that they would "slip right out" but they are teeth... they aren't supposed to slip right out.

I went in at 9. One lady came in and took X-Ray's of my Wisdom teeth. I was with her for for 10 minutes. Then the next lady came in to get my mouth numb. I noticed her eyelash extensions, she noticed my cute pedicure. 3 shots on the right side of my mouth and 3 on the left. I was with her for about 10 minutes. Then she left. 5 minutes later the Dentist came in. I told him I was a little nervous and he kind of laughed at me. After it was done... I could see why. I felt the pressure, but that was about it. I didn't hear a crack or a crunch. I didn't get laughing gas, I didn't even have to have my mouth open that wide. One tooth came out in about 2 seconds the other took a little longer at 5 seconds. Then my mouth was rinsed and stuffed with gauze. I got up, grabbed my extra gauze and notes signed by the dentist for some Lortab and Antibiotics and I left the dentist office at 9:30 and drove straight to work.

It may have been easy, but it doesn't take away how crappy you feel. Your mouth stays numb for half the day. You can't really talk and when you do you sound and look retarded... which makes things pretty exciting at work. You still get to change out your bloody gauze. When you can feel your mouth again, its throbbing pain and a couple of holes in the back of your mouth where some teeth used to be. When you take Lortab for the pain to go away... it wants to shut down your body, so I had to fight sleep while I was at work, I could barely stand up or walk straight. I was pretty out of it. Some of my friends got to see me like that. Apparently they thought it was pretty funny.

I am just glad it is FINALLY over. No more dealing with the Wisdom teeth. I probably went about it the most difficult way possible. Seriously. Thanks to my awesome friends and family who were there for me. All I wanted was a hug because I felt so crappy... and I got that. THANKS!!!

Mr. Blind Kiss

I almost can't believe I am about to share this story... then again, there is not a lot that I don't share, so there you go.

This was by far the most awkward blind date that I have ever been on! Before I explain the date, I need to give you the background behind the date.

Back in Winter 2005, I did EVERYTHING with my best guy friends (Brad, Nate & Steve). Being in our early 20's... we were obsessed with kissing. I don't remember how it got started, but we started making a list of all the places that we would want to kiss someone in. We got pretty creative, I will leave it at that. As Steve and I were adding to the "Kiss List" one day, he turned to me and said... "Tracy, we should make a date out of this!" I thought... what a great idea, except that my boyfriend and I had recently broken up. Steve was dating someone at the time, so that was great for him... not so much for me. He told me to find someone to ask on the date. It was interesting what people's responses were to us telling them about our date idea. People either thought it was the greatest date ever or cursed us to Hell. Not that I really cared what anyone else thought... I just needed to find a date that I actually wanted to kiss.

Well, Steve gathered a group that all wanted to do the date. Turns out, I had not found anyone. I told Steve I would just not go, but he made me promise that I would follow through with this date idea that we came up with together. He told me he would set me up with someone. A blind date for a kissing scavenger hunt? I didn't know how I felt about this.... however, I am a girl of my word and I promised Steve that I would follow through with this date.

The date was quite brilliant. We had a printed list for each couple. You had to get pictures of you and your date kissing in as many places on the list as you could in the set amount of time... so people went in groups of 4, so that you could have the other couple take pictures of you and you could take pictures of them. Along with that list, each couple got a list of kissing facts (all the great things about kissing) and gum and chap-stick maybe? I can't remember everything. It was going to be awesome... if you liked kissing your date that is.....

I showed up for the date ready to meet my blind date that Steve had set up for me. He was a shy and little bit awkward of a guy. I was NOT attracted to him at all. This was going to be awkward. Especially the first kiss. I don't remember there being a whole lot of conversation between us. Thank goodness I was with another couple that I was friends with so I had someone to talk to. We got lots of different pictures of us kissing lots of different places, like we were supposed to.

After the set amount of time we were given, we all went back to my apartment to show everyone's pictures while a CD that I made of songs all about kissing was played in the background. There were a lot of funny pictures. While going through everyone's pictures I noticed that all of the other couples in the group except me and my date, the other couple that was with us and Steve and his date were FAKING their kisses for the pictures. They all NEVER really kissed. I was so upset. Here I was really kissing my blind date that I didn't really want to... and all along I could have been faking it? Why didn't I think of that. When the slide show hit our pictures, we took notice that not only that we were really kissing... but that Mr. Blind Kiss's fly was down. Opps. That's even more embarrassing! ha ha

I'm pretty sure I deleted ALL of the pictures we took that night.

Maybe a year later or sooner, my friend Steve got a bunch of friends together at "The Malt Shop" and among those friends that he invited, he invited Mr. Blind Kiss. Of course we recognized each other. how do you not. We had not spoken since. Steve introduces us and asks if we know each other. We just look at him. Silence.
AWKWARD!!!!
Then Steve starts laughing and says "Oh yeah! You guys definitely know each other!"

Maybe one day.... I could give that date another try with someone I really like.

The Dirty Dash

Today I got dirty. Real Dirty. I raced in the 5k Dirty Dash with 8 other people on my team. Team Commando.

I first heard about the Dirty Dash last year. They had one in September and I really wanted to sign up and do it, however... I was in India. So Obviously that didn't happen. I knew they would be doing another one, so I had been waiting since then to do it. I am actually glad that I waited... because the one in September was a 10k and I am glad I did the 5k. A little over 3 miles is enough for me to be stomping through the mud and going through obstacles and up and down hills.

Since you are in teams... and it is all for fun and just getting dirty (you are not even really timed) people dress up as a team. We were trying to think of what we should dress up as... so a few of us went to the thrift store the night before to see if we could find something. My idea was to have camo shorts and black shirts. We cleaned out the thrift store of their camo and found something for everyone amazingly enough. We also decided to do some face paint too... to snazz things up a bit. So when we first got there... we put on our face paint while getting pumped up and took some before pictures. You need before pictures... because everyone knows you are NOT going to be coming back looking the same.

We walked down to where the race started. The race was held at Soldier Hollow (where my co-workers and I went tubing) and everyone started the race at different times. So people were running the course all day long. Our team's time to run was at 3:20 pm. I was glad for this because it was a warmer part of the day and with all the mud and water... you want all the heat you can get. So we got there just in time to start the race. The beginning was all up hill in the mud. After that... you run a bit and then throughout the run you go through the obstacles that you see below on the map. There was one part where you are just walking through this deep thick mud. The kind that you can loose your shoes in (and some people did). As I was walking through it, I thought of the "Never Ending Story" when he is walking through the swamp of sadness. I wanted to yell out "ARTAX!!" but when I mentioned my thoughts to those around me, they all looked at me like I was a weirdo. Oh well.

No matter what pace everyone run's the race, towards the end of the race, you have to wait for the rest of your team and go down the water slide as a team. Me and two other girls were at the end of the train of our team. Then we all got into a mud fight and  went down the water slide together.

Then it was back into a big mud-pit and another mud fight before crossing the finish line.

Here is our after picture.

The worst part of the whole race was rinsing off in the showers after. Seriously... I am pretty sure that water was coming straight from the melting snow off of the mountains. It was brain freezing cold!

After the race is over, your shoes get pretty nasty... not that they won't wash out... but in case you don't want to take them, they have a program where you can leave your shoes, they will clean them and send them to Africa. I thought that was awesome, so I donated my shoes.

The race was fun. SO glad I did it... and with such a fun group too. Got to know some awesome new people AND I always love to get dirty. The only downfall to the whole thing is that I was a little sick when doing the race, so not only did it make running a little harder, I think it made me more sick. I had just waited SO long I couldn't pass it up. I didn't want to wait until September... plus, I will probably be gone again for it anyway. So... in the end, it was worth it. 

Flashback Friday 15

The flashback today takes us back to April 2005. Back to my Riviera days. I got along really well with two of my roommates. On occasion we did apartment dates where we would plan a date and each ask someone out. This is the ONLY time I ask boys on dates. ha ha. Throughout the year we each were dating someone. At this particular time Brittany and Tammy were both dating someone, I was not. However, after my break up a few months earlier I decided that I was going to go on a date at least every other week. I accomplished that if not more. People would either set me up, or we would have apartment dates and I would ask someone or I would get asked. However you slice it... it worked out. For this particular date I decided to ask Sean.... because I thought he was fun and awesome. You might know this already if you watched the video I posted "Jekyl vs Hyde" where he made a music video of himself. Anyway... he must have known of my dating goal that semester because I remember when I asked him he got all excited and said "Alright! My turn with the Trace-ster!".

After he accepted my date offer he asked what we would be doing. I don't think we had it all planned out except that we were going to be making dinner for the guys... so he gave the suggestion for the date. Something that he had always wanted to do. So we went for it. Sounded like a good time to us.

What did we do? Well, after dinner we all went to "Savers" aka Thrift Store, and we had 5 or so dollars to pick out something for our date to wear. The girls shopped together for their dates and the guys shopped together for their dates.  Once we were done shopping we drove to Trafalga to play some miniature golf. The first thing we had to do when we got there was go to the bathrooms and open up the bag of what our date picked out for us and had to change into what they bought and play miniature golf in it. When I saw what Sean had bought me I was a little bit embarrassed. I couldn't believe what he was going to make me wear. Of course.... how could I be so surprised knowing that he would run races in jump suites all of the time. It was quite funny actually.

We had a great time playing mini golf, but the date was not yet over....

When we got home we had dessert, but not in the normal way one would have dessert after a date. We had ice cream Sunday's but it was all dropped in your mouth from above... in hopes that it actually got to your mouth. The person receiving the ice cream sunday had to just lay on the floor and keep their eyes closed and their mouth open.

You end up looking like this!

Ha ha... it makes me laugh to just look at these pictures. We were so crazy. Oh wait... I'm still like this.

Confessions of a Brunette on the Internet 68

I already told you about my trip to Arizona. Besides that... it has been a pretty uneventful week. I have been really tired. I have been feeling a little under the weather, but not too bad and I have just been taking it easy since I got back. Work has been pretty crazy, a little bit stressful because of taking on new responsibilities without having the time to really train for it. I just try and take one day at a time though and not worry too much about things I don't really have a lot of control over. Its funny because I had another interview with my boss (we have them a few times a year to check up on how things are going and how you are doing with your goals and such) and he told me that we all handle stress very differently at work and he was very appreciative of how I handle stress aka I don't really stress out as much as my other co-workers. He asked me if I go home and vent about work. I told him no, once I go home I don't really talk about work nor do I really want to think about work. He was so shocked with amazement that I didn't talk about work at home AND I don't stress at work. I had never really thought about it... but unless someone asks me about work, what am I really going to say about it? Its not like anyone else is going to relate or care about the stresses that I deal with at work. I don't know. I would just rather not think about work once I leave work. When I get home I want to relax and have fun.

The only other cool thing that happened this week was on our drive back to Utah from Arizona, we we needed to fill up on gas. We ended up in this small town in between Vegas and Mesquite that I didn't even know exist because it is hidden far off the exit in the dessert. As we were filling up on gas this guy got out of his car to do the same. This guy looked EXACTLY like Hagrid. No joke. Huge, big beard. He just happened to be wearing overalls instead of Gamekeepers clothes. I tried to take a picture with my phone, but was not that successful. Sad, I know.

Well, since I don't have a lot to report about this week, I was looking through my regular blogs today and one of them posted a summer wish list. I thought that was such a cute idea that I thought I would do the same.  So here it goes.

My Summer Wish List includes:

Making my patio garden the most beautiful that it can possibly be and spend lots of time in it talking with friends, Dinner's, Breakfast, reading, etc...

LOTS of BBQ's.

Going on lots of night walks with friends.

Reading at the Park.

Watching More Sunsets.

Going Camping.

Lots of Bonfires with friends and eat S'mores.

Drink lots of fruit smoothies.

Go somewhere beautiful and paint.

Have more fun Girl's nights out on the town.

Tea Parties.

Star Gazing (Mountain man helped me start the summer accomplishing this already. Hopefully there will be more)

Watching movies and sleep overs in a fort.

Watching movies outside.

But most of all, relaxing!

I hope to accomplish all of this and photograph it all. I heart the Summer! So glad it is finally here. I feel like I have been waiting forever for it to come.

Photo of the Week 66

I love to visit the Cemetery after Memorial Day Weekend. It is quite the site to behold. I love the tradition of people remembering and respecting those who have passed. I also just love visiting the Provo Cemetery in general because its a beautiful cemetery. Hope you all had a great Memorial Day.