30 January 2010

WE KIND OF SKIPPED CHRISTMAS



Christmas shopping time falls right in line with the worst weeks of the semester.
So to remove the stress, Ben agreed to nix gift-giving to each other.


Because we basically gifted ourselves everything we ever wanted
while we were on our Thanksgiving jaunt to Seoul...

he wears them as wedding band substitutes

we persuaded each other to buy things we thought the other would like.
(That's the only reason I initially dissuaded the Panda hat... I didn't know he'd like it so much!)


Plus, we got stuff for our home...


So that kind of counts as gift-giving, right?

pink uniqlo hoodie and flexible oliver peoples-inspired frames

Either way, we were satisfied.

*But much thanks to Mom, who more than covered our "Santa gifts" and stockings!
I'm sure going to miss Christmas with my family...

and the rock band sessions that come with it.

--------

This shall be a "perpetual post" and I will update with more photos of our
Korean "gifts" as fast as I can take them/post them. Stay tuned...




29 January 2010

HAPPY 26TH!


...click for clarity...


* FORGIVE ME FOR POSTING THIS AS YOUR DAY OF BIRTH IS WANING. I'VE HAD SOME COMPUTER CHALLENGES THIS WEEK. BUT I PROMISE I'VE BEEN THINKING OF YOU ALL DAY! ;)

28 January 2010

"LIFE-LONG DREAM COME TRUE"

(That's what Ben called it).

Last weekend, I was the happiest girl on earth,
because I was married to the happiest/most excited boy on earth.
(REALLY - I don't ever think I've seen him this giddy.
For good measure, let's just say the last time he was this
happy was on our wedding day... when his other
life-long dream was coming true?)



Literally, it was his DREAM.
(After we got the "Row 1" tickets on Friday,
he woke up twice that night to mumble that
he'd had a dream that we'd left late for the game.)





















(This is the ad I designed for the Jazz program - my first time seeing it in print!)

Thanks to the Nu Skin for making dreams come true.


HAPPIEST BOY, HAPPIEST GIRL.

25 January 2010

TO MY MOTHER-IN-LAW

*sorry I'm a tad late on this!


And PS! People say great things about you all the time because you are great all the time.
Even today, my mom sent me an email with the following lines
(and I don't think she even knew it was your special day):

Becky is really the most amazing person in the world. You can feel HER love for ALL right away, and it warms me all over... and I don't want to leave her presence when I'm around her!
She is absolutely the coolest Mother-in-Law on the planet—(2nd only to Mama Jose, of course :)

20 January 2010

BELATED: BEN'S AMAZING KOREA PHOTOS




PLANTER N' BENCH

FRESHEST OF THE MOST FRESH BIBIMBAP. MMMMM.

THE GREATEST SHOPPING ON EARTH? ANYONE DISAGREE?






Oh, and Brian found Nu Skin Korea...
right across from the most amazing Buddhist Temple.

19 January 2010

BRINGING HOME THE BACON—er, PRODUCE



Last week Ben went shopping and when he came home,
we could fill two big color-coordinated bowls.

Needless to say we've been eating well lately.

(Minus today... dinner was 15 hard tacos on the
Del Taco 3-for-$1 special before we went to our Salt Lake Center classes...)

16 January 2010

TONIGHT






not pictured:
the most intense (like, involving screaming) game of pictionary ever,
and the collective effort for macho nachos with
habonera cheese, black beans, sour cream, avocado, salsa, and freshly chopped cilantro

thanks, seans, jess & hannah.

13 January 2010

GERM - AND A HEFTY DOSE OF ME

here, i must be trying to explain something, like i'm about attemp in this post.
though this is a much less-gross version of me, and today i'm doing it with a gross cold.
(um, and even though that photo/memory feels like a year ago, it was in 2005. FIVE years past. What?)

OK... ladies and gentlemen, (or is there just one gentleman-Kurt-in my audience?)
prepare yourselves for the rambling me:

I have goobered eyes and my nose is housing a persistent drip
which means endless "almost-then-finally sneezes,"
and of course when they drip out of the nose, it is endless Kleenex.
Every third word I speak jumps to a raspy whimper as if I'm a boy in puberty,
my nostrils and lips are fighting for the title of "most chapped"
(though my tiny tube of Blistex helps to alleviate that battle).
Provo's worst air in the nation is not helping.
The pain is gone after just an hour of wake, but I'm still a gross mess for others all day.


i.e. CLASS where I need to be so I can get started on finishing this school thing.

Oh, and I caught another germ—also, not a good one to catch during school:
I want to be a mom. And I just want to do projects and go exploring.
And I want to do projects with kids. And worse, I want to blog about it.
I have no kids and I'm already aspiring to that 'Mom Blog' ladder?

I blame Jordan for posting this, which I saw on my slow work day on Friday.
I spent nearly all afternoon scrolling and scrolling through this Rebecca's weblog.
I started going backward, until Aug 2008, then decided best to read chronologically...
but only made it to Mar 2007. I still have nearly a year to learn about what she does!
Oddly, I felt like I could relate to so much when really I probably can't. But I was hooked.

And then I found out about this mama, and Katy, as always, and the links just kept going...
but, blogs aside, the monsters played a role in my fixation and fascination
and awakening of what has probably always been an urge in me. (Mom?)
I just want to make stuff. Oh man, and the Bryners last night fed my budding craving
with all their book-paper pom pom strings and bitty, stuffed owls and Shrinky Dinks
(Tallia was appalled we hadn't ever heard of them. Have you?) and sticky iron-on-paper for fabric pillows, and the ReadyMade book from their library or the "Modern Kid Craft/Design Book" they bought? (It teaches about Paul Rand and Charles and Ray Eames and then gives cheap awesome versions of the inspired designers for kidlets.
Ouch! I cry: I want to create stuff!

And yes, create a little human too. I always have, of course, but this week I had my first
"pregnant dream" (does anyone have those?) and it was a long dream and I was at some clinic next to a pro football field. I had to wait in the room while my family and Ben watched the game next door. For some reason that was the normal routine. The sad part is I was scared for the pain! Why? I boast a high pain threshold and sure, birthing beats all, but it was a dream.

Well, anyway this isn't a pregnant announcement. (Despite that our first day back in class,
Adrian led a string of jokes that I was, in fact, making such an announcement.)
I have always admitted that I'm scared of that: Mommy-ing while student-ing. No, thanks.

But still. I wish I had the germ of design student and graduation motivation.
And while wishing, I'm doing my best to avoid this germ.
(Skim that link for the F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, the article as a whole is for a long block of time).


Oh, and if you really are still reading, you can be amazed with me that,
appropriately, while my mind is buzzing and buzzing with what I thought was a germ,
Becky sends me the following, where Pearl calls it a curse:

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this:
A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive.
To them... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy,
a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.
Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create—
so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings
or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off...
They must create, must pour out creation.
By some strange, unknown, inward urgency
they are not really alive unless they are creating.


-Pearl Buck
US novelist in China (1892 - 1973)

And don't think I'm done yet. I'm sick, mind you. But not sick of typing... even while snotting,
(sorry, Ben, if you want to use my laptop, get some Nu Skin hand sanitizer from the cupboard).
And I have more to connect:

Dieter F. Uchdtorf calls it an inherent wish. O man, I get goosebumps every time:



And Levi said that very address above served an inspiration behind his search of the
"circle of life kinda thing" found within the realm of killing or destroying as part of a creation.
Woosh, there goes a "wholenuther" concept to contemplate. Thanks, Levi for doing it first:
(I designed stuff to advertise his show, sorry I'm only advertising here with one day left. Go see!)


Oh man, and I think that's it. I'm glad for the germ/fixation/obsession/curse/inherent wish.
I don't know what to do with it except pray that I can channel it into my senior portfolio
and BFA Final project and show. Pray for me too?—if you're still here reading. And wow, you must be sick too if you've stuck around. And to think, I'd just be leaving class.

12 January 2010


You can see I have a long way to go before I can live up to this role model,
but thankfully she's still young (so I can catch up?)—a modest 32 today.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY JORDAN!

(HERE'S TO NC STATE FOR BEN'S GRAD SCHOOL 2010?)

*if i'm wrong on either of those "i thinks" please correct me, ben or jordan...

WEDDING DAY PHOTOS BY MY COUSIN JORDAN JUAREZ