Who is that girl I see?

BEFORE...

AFTER...

The long hair is gone! Maybe not for good, but at least for the rest of the summer in our non-air-conditioned apartment.


The look has been a little weird for me to get used to, but so far, everything - not just the normal stuff like scratching my head and eating ice cream, but random things like driving my car and picking up the mail - has been TEN THOUSAND TIMES BETTER with short hair. Maybe I am the opposite of Samson, and cutting my hair has given me superpowers. I just may go for that flip on the trampoline after all. (Spoiler: No. I will never do that.)

Happy Birthweek

Before I was married, I had the vague impression that my birthday after getting married would be a small, private affair, the highlight of which would be opening gift-wrapped coupons for a backrub from my husband.

As it turns out, I was wrong. My birthday this year was composed of several grand events: the first of these was a party at the Covingtons on Sunday, the 17th, involving a curry dinner, delicious storebought cheesecake, and an assortment of loot - toilet paper, potatoes, applesauce, printing paper and notebook paper, a written family history of some of Matthew's ancestors, oven mitts, and a spice rack (which we unfortunately didn't have room for in our kitchen).

My real birthday, Monday, started off on a bit of a downer - we had unfortunately left out a tempting container of garbage during our week-long hiatus from the apartment while taking care of the Covington's house and dog, Zoey, resulting in the occupation of our kitchen by several families of fruit flies. I spent the whole morning sanitizing our kitchen and baiting, trapping, and destroying these fruit flies, mainly with my bare hands. Is it any wonder that I am now a little paranoid about spending time in the kitchen and about washing my hands?

Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who was able to turn this dismal morning into a perfectly splendid rest of the day by doing the following:

1. Making dinner - stroganoff with GREEN beans (the first of his many attempts to make the day green-themed, as that is my favorite color).

2. Making me THIS card. You may need to watch this clip from "500 Days of Summer" (which we had recently seen and loved) to get the reference and thus fully appreciate the cuteness.

Guess I got the "coupon" part, after all :)

3. Giving me an iPod (green, naturally), all wrapped up in some wedding paper with some see-through green paper covering it. I've never had an i-pod before, but I guess it might be nice to have something to listen to when I go running.


4. Making me THIS dessert.


Peach cobbler, upon my request. Not just any peach cobbler, either - GREEN peach cobbler, with homemade peach ice cream. Mmmmmmmmm!



You may find it impossible to believe, but my birthday is STILL NOT OVER. That's right - I get to go back to the old homestead this Saturday and celebrate AGAIN with the Miller clan! I am really excited - mostly to celebrate with the family, but also because their house will have air-conditioning. Stay tuned for more gifts, pictures, and details!

The Great and Amazing Post of Wedding Pictures

I've been married a month and two days now (I KNOW.... SO LONG, right?), and Matthew and I are no longer the most recently married couple in our singles ward, but I still love remembering our wedding day and all the excitement of our first hours as newlyweds. But I thought I might have gotten over all the wedding happiness/excitement after we finally (sort of) finished the thank-you notes (who am I kidding? The thank-you notes will NEVER be finished. N-E-V-E-R.), and returned to the important things in life like work and school and doing dishes and eating ice cream.

BUT THEN.... the wedding pictures arrived. SQUEAL! OMG! SO CUTE! Look at us! Look how pretty! I am so happy to be married! Did I just say I was married? I can't believe it! It's too good to be true!!!!

The first of many amazing kissing photos, and the very first picture of us kissing as newlyweds. I was actually beginning to despair of us ever having a picture of us kissing that I actually liked, a thought which presently seems laughable.

Behold the making of history. This is likely the only photoshoot in existence where you will see my mother raising her fist. Obedience to the photographer's requests? Peer pressure? Enthusiasm that no one had died from last night's dinner? (Note: Yes, my mother is a wonderful cook, and yes, her fears that someone will die someday from her cooking are completely unjustified and paranoid) Anyway, I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't seen it.

My beautiful bridesmaids: Matthew's sisters Crissy, Becky, and Katie, and my sisters Sarah, Hannah, and Mary Alma. Becky made all of our beautiful corsages and boutonnieres, not to mention that gorgeous bouquet I'm showing off.

Matthew and his groomsmen - his brother Andy, my brother Daniel, his brother-in-law Heath, and his cousin Ben. They (at least, Heath, Daniel, and Andy - Ben's appearance was a last-minute surprise) were supposed to all be wearing their tuxes, but due to a misunderstanding, Andy, Heath, and Matthew's dad left their tuxes at home, and Daniel graciously lent his to Matthew's dad). I didn't really mind - to me, it just made Matthew stand out a bit more and look a bit more sharp and snappy.


Ahhhh, the most difficult shot of them all! Poor Heath, the only wedded one in the bunch, ended up having to bear a rather slippery and unfairly weighted portion of ...why, the dress, of course..., which resulted in an unfortunately positioned hand on the bride's bosom. Fortunately, the problem was quickly identified and somewhat rectified, though the picture is still among my most awkward moments on record.

My grandparents were able to fly out all the way from Tennessee and be with me on the most special day of my life. I loved seeing them and was so grateful for their love and support.

Matthew and his grandmother, Pauline, a truly wonderful woman who has nothing but kind and gracious in welcoming me to the Covington family.


Is that another incredibly awesome kissing photo? Why yes, it is.

These last shots are some of my very favorite ones of Matthew and me. We were very lucky to have great weather and a wonderful photographer, Nikole Freestone (my sister-in-law's cousin), who I'm half-convinced used some kind of mind-reading powers to discern exactly what pictures I wanted.


At the moment, I thought this would be the most cliche picture in the world. But I wanted it anyway! Good thing too, because it turns out it's actually the most ROMANTIC picture in the world.

Or.... is it this one? Mmmmmmmm.

Happily Ever After, Part One

Sorry for the long delay in blog posting. I got married, you see. And then there was the business of a honeymoon. And then my husband (My HUSBAND! Isn't that a wonderful thing to say!??) had a birthday...

My HUSBAND. And my husband's wife. OMG, that's ME!

After a frantic morning of errands, which included trips to my house, Target, the Distribution Center, Movies 8, and the library, I spent a rather quiet evening with Matthew at home in the apartment. We did go out to see "Rango" before cake and presents and had a lot of fun. The "cake" was actually Matthew's favorite dessert, apple crisp. We had a lot of candles given to us as wedding presents, but no one had given us any matches, so we got rather creative with the gas stove, and voila!

Since we didn't have any decorations of our own, I borrowed some old friends to cheer up the apartment a bit.


Though really, when all is said and done, all you need to be happy is ice cream and a man to scoop it for you, am I right, ladies?


That weekend we celebrated Matthew's birthday again with ten times the amount of presents, food, and family members. It was also the birthday of this little guy (Matthew's nephew Brian Hales, born on June 10, Matthew's birthday, 2008):


Neither one seemed interested in claiming the other's presents, fortunately, and they didn't seem to mind sharing the cake either. They each took turns blowing out the candles (sorry, I only got pictures of Matthew):


I don't remember all the presents bestowed upon Matthew, but there was a rather elaborate treasure hunt which resulted in our owning a safe. We also acquired a lot of cooking spices, a bike repair kit, a few fun-looking books (including the first book in Brandon Mull's new Beyonder series!!!! Squeal!!!!!), and some mayonnaise. In addition to his breakfast, cake, the I Am Legend DVD and original book in graphic novel form, I gave Matthew his favorite present of all:

TRUE LOVE'S KISS!

April 2011 Media Inventory

MOVIES

Anastasia

Rasputin was pretty creepy - reminded me of the bad guy in The Princess and the Frog. Not a great movie but still okay, mildly interesting and so on.

Gladiator

I love this movie. It makes me cry. The acting, script, music, just.... EVERYTHING... is amazing.

Moulin Rouge!

It took me a while to see this, and it wasn't my favorite, but I'm still glad I've seen it. The story was fairly dull, but still told in an interesting way, and the characters were a bit cliche and silly, but I found myself liking them anyway. I was exhausted and drained after seeing it, though - probably won't revisit it for a while.

The Inspector General

A lot weirder and less funny than the other Danny Kaye movies I've seen, but it was okay. I saw it with Matthew, which made it seem a lot better than it actually was.

Lovely, Still

A beautiful movie. So sweet, and thoughtful and inspiring as well. And CHRISTMASY! Yup - no wonder I loved it.

I Do: How to get married and stay single

I had fun watching this movie, about an Italian guy living with his family, who want him to get married because they are tired of taking care of him, but they also all want to approve of his wife and get involved in his life, etc. I enjoyed forgetting about my own situation and laughing at someone else's for a while.

Leap Year

Cute movie. You know what I mean.

Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince

I don't remember too much about it except that it was all right. I was kind of waiting for Dumbledore's death to be like Gandalf's fall into the abyss.... but then... it... wasn't. Oh well.

The Court Jester

Still the funniest Danny Kaye movie I've seen. And I got a lot more of the jokes that Matthew and his family like to quote this time around! But it made me want to watch the Errol Flynn Robin Hood.

Hitch

I like this movie a lot. Despite having a plot that is SO FAKE, the acting/dialogue feels genuine, interesting, and funny. Plus it's the cuteness of Leap Year x 2.

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde

Oh my freakiness. Probably better not to see this movie unless you're not my usual type of blog follower (but if you do see it, I recommend doing so at an academic conference surrounded by a very humorous group of BYU students with whom you have recently taken a class on horror). It's mostly the traditional story, except, um, did I mention Dr. Jekyll turns into a woman? Don't be fooled by "Sister" - she is definitely not LDS.

Megapiranha

I do not recommend this movie to anyone. However, it may be the most hilariously bad horror movie I've ever seen. Part of this, of course, might have to do with the fact that I watched it late at night (right after Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde) with the same group of awesome female BYU students (one of us won it in a raffle that night). Technically, I probably shouldn't say I've seen it since I fell asleep less than an hour in, but the parts I watched were ridiculously awful.

Clue

No matter how many times I see this (TWO SO FAR), I always think it's super funny at the beginning, and then I always lose track of what's going on when they give the explanation, and then I think at the end, "Huh. That wasn't so good." And then I forget and re-watch it. Seriously, you guys, if this happens a third time, I might be cursed.

Memoirs of a Geisha

I randomly picked up a copy of Wild Swans while cleaning my room in Sandy and got interested in epic, moody, dramatic sagas about repressed women in Asia. This movie was just was I was looking for - drama, romance, history, tragedy, and beauty.

True Grit

Loved this film! It's so nice to see a classic western film being made for modern audiences. The concept, casting, and execution were just absolutely fantastic - nothing felt awkward, out-of-date, or boring for one minute. Bring back the good ol' days!

Tron

This film really wanted to be cool. Honestly, it tried so hard. It had people wearing body suits with glowing neon stripes and racing each other in motorcycles and blowing each other up dispassionately and using magical forces and superpowers (aka advanced science) to do all sorts of freaky special effects stuff. While I was impressed by all the high-tech showmanship, it still felt like something was lacking here. The human relationships and new-age atmosphere just weren't doing it for me. As for Tron, I would be really hard-pressed to tell you a single thing about who (what?) he actually is.

BOOKS

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I thought this was a good book, but it was definitely not my favorite in the series. In keeping with most final books in an extremely lucrative and popular series, the reality could not quite meet my (unrealistic, no doubt) expectations. The beginning just dragged on forever without accomplishing enough, and the ending was just a bit too nice and quick and tidy for me.

Eat Pray Love

It took me a while to get to this book, but I'm glad I read it. She has a really engaging and personal writing style, and it was fun to travel vicariously to Italy, India, and Indonesia through her memoirs. I'm not sure I agree with her conclusions about herself, God, and life in general, but I appreciated her honesty, insights, and perspective.

Coming to Grips with Me!

Hey, to the faithful five-ish people who read this blog, if you want to read something I wrote about big shoes a little while ago, click here!

Don't worry about sparing your praise in the comments... I promise I won't let the fame go to my head.

I'll let it go to my FEET!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHHHAHHAHAAAAHAHAAAA!!!!

(Ok, sorry.)

Wanna see something else? Well, here is a terrifying picture of some torture shoes I found on the Internet which pretty much represent my memory of pointe shoes.

There are nails that stab your heels if you try to come off your toes.

That's right, NAILS.






Fortunately, there seems to be no added punishment for failing to point your toes.

We're getting married. See, there's a WEBSITE.

It's funny how different the process of getting engaged and married is today from way back when.

When my parents got engaged, they put an announcement in the newspaper which we still have today in a photo album. The newspaper (I like to think of it as the old-timey alternative for gossip magazines) also covered the wedding, describing the type of gown my mother wore and who the groomsmen were, etc. My mom and dad had one snapshot taken for their engagement picture. That's right - ONE. And they couldn't even check it digitally to see if someone's eyes were closed.

We have a few (twenty or so) pictures (and no videos) of my parents' wedding which we store in a photo album and look at every so often when feeling nostalgic. None of the pictures are particularly "funny" or "artistic" - they are all about showing what happened, who was there, and how people were really feeling at that time. I love looking at that photo album because my parents look so happy and beautiful.

Nowadays, there's a lot more you have to do to get the word out. First you've got to e-mail and Facebook the whole thing. I don't think it really clicked for me what a big deal getting engaged was until I suddenly got my Facebook wall plastered with comments from people I hadn't heard from in years.

Next, you have to have an entire photoshoot (maybe more than one!) for your engagement pictures, not to mention another one for your bridal pictures, then another one for your temple pictures and reception pictures and family pictures etc etc etc. You may also want to get some videos.

Then you also have to have a SLIDESHOW at the reception, with mandatory pictures of you and your spouse as cute babies, ugly kids, awkward teenagers, and super-cool young adults. Do you know how difficult it is to sort through a million pictures (both of our families have six kids - that's a LOT of pictures) trying to find a sufficient number of photos that fall into these prescribed categories?

But that's not all. You have to create a website to share your story. Which we did. Because I love to write, I enjoyed this part. Maybe too much - my version is SIGNIFICANTLY longer than his version. But hey, it's not like I'm making anybody read it, right? (Now go read it NOW.)

I do love technology. I'm not sure how well I would get along in a world without computers and DVDs and cell phones and e-mail, especially now that I have to spend approximately four days a week away from Matthew and would basically die if we weren't able to text each other every day. But I also think it was kind of nice and simple and quaint in the old days, when all you did was make an announcement to your family and maybe in church, and let the newspaper take care of the rest. When all's said and done, the important thing is that you're getting married to the right person, and that thankfully stays the same over time.