The Beginnings of the Perfect Weekend

On Friday I told Doug that I was quitting my little invitation design job and that all the brides I was working with would just have to deal with it. (sometimes I don't really like working with my clients.....)

I settled for taking the weekend off. (not an easy task when you work from home) It's already been such an great couple of days! I love weekends.

On Saturday we headed up to Park City to see my Aunt Lolli. Doug set up her two new computers and printer while she and I sat around and ate watermelon salsa. (sounds weird, I know, but it's really good! I'm going to put the recipe on the end of this post so you can all try the amazing refreshing flavor) Not a bad set up, eh? In my defense, I did put the ink cartridges into the printer AND plugged in the power cord, so don't think that I was TOTALLY lazy :)

When the computers were all set up Lolli took us out on the town. We had an AMAZING meal at Red Rock (SO good, I highly suggest it). I love going out to eat with Lolli 'cause she always knows the best places. After dinner we went and saw Angels and Demons and headed home.



Then today after teaching about how we smell with our noses and taste with our tongues (I love teaching Sunbeams) we headed out for another day out. We went up into the canyon and up to Squaw Peak. The mountains are SO beautifully green this time of year- it makes me happy just to look at them.


We finished up the day by pulling out my old juicer. (well, it's not that old- we just haven't used it in a LONG time) We made fresh orange juice, strawberry juice and watermelon juice. And then we mixed and matched the flavors to come up with the best combo. For me I think it's a tie between strawberry/watermelon and strawberry/orange/watermelon- just for reference.


All in all, it's been a great weekend. And we still have one day left. I love long weekends!


Watermelon Salsa
2 cups diced seedless watermelon (make sure you dice it really small- like the same size pieces you'd get if you dice up a tomato)
3/4 c finely chopped sweet onion
3/4 c black beans, rinsed and drained
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
1/4 c minced fresh cilantro
2 tsp. brown sugar
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Serve with tortilla chips.

YUM!

Painting Class

For Christmas my parents gave some money to use to take a painting class. I've done art all my life, but have never really painted. I did a couple things in high school with no real direction at all (after going to design school, I actually prefer to have someone behind me telling me everything I'm doing wrong), but I don't really count those as something that really taught me anything.

I'm currently studying under Derek Hegsted- a guy who's done a lot of LDS art for Deseret Book. It's been a lot of fun to learn such a different side of art- it's definitely not sketching up 150 views of a toothbrush in an hour or drawing paisleys in Adobe Illustrator. It's really refreshing. I feel like being part of an art studio is such a part of me- I've really missed it the past year.

I just finished my first painting. I have to admit- I'm probably one of the worst in the class right now- but I feel like I'm learning so much, so I'm still proud of my little painting! I've just started my second and am really excited to go through the process again now that I know so much more.

Featured!

Wow, I've been blogging about work a lot lately! I guess it's most of what I think about during wedding season. But this one is so exciting!

My little stationary company is being featured on crazibeautiful.com- a website focusing on information for women in Utah. They have a business section where they feature a Utah business (has to be run by a girl too) each week- and this week the feature is Me! How fun is that?

You can see my feature at www.crazibeautiful.com/SharingDreams/

AND if you leave a comment you'll be entered into a drawing for a set of FREE thank you cards designed by me :)

A Morning in the Garden

On Saturday my Aunt Lolli organized a gardening day down at my Grandma and Grandpa Chris' house. Just about all the Utah cousins came down and we spent the day together planting, mulching, cutting, spraying and painting. It was great to have everyone there working on it together. (sure wish I could get that many people working on my lawn at once!)

I think we all loved Grandma's yard before Saturday, but we'll all love it more now that we know first hand all of the perfect, tiny details Grandma puts into make her yard look just right!

Primary Activity

I've been teaching the Sunbeam (three year old Sunday school class) class at church this year. It's been so fun to be in the primary. I know I probably shouldn't admit this, but learning the hand motions to songs and playing bean bag toss games is just so much more fun to me than adult Sunday School.

I love my little Sunbeams. I'm still getting used to living so close to the people in my ward. It's been fun to be out and about running errands and hear a little voice from a corner of a store yell- hey! That's my teacher!

Last Saturday we had a big primary activity. The kids split up into groups and went around the church to learn about all the different things that happened while they are in primary each week. They got to see the bishop's office, and the clerk's office and the room where they prepare the sacrament.

Doug got to come and be in charge of teaching them what happens in the Elder's Quorum. I don't mean to brag or anything, but his station was the coolest. They were in the gym and he made a big maze for the kids to go through. At every point where they had to choose which way to go there were arrows with pictures of people doing different things. If you chose the thing that the Elders do then you wouldn't get stuck in the maze.

He's so cool. I was proud of him :) And my Sunbeams were sure happy to have something so fun to do!

Spring Design Work

I've been pretty busy designing things the past few weeks. It's been a lot of fun. I've been doing a few wedding invitations, which are always fun, but my favorite was the poster on top. I got to make it for my dad's lab. I guess drawing DNA and RNA was just a nice break from the various types and styles of flowers that I typically get to draw. (you can click on the images to make them bigger and see more of the details) Plus there was the added bonus of having my dad as the one who was critiquing my work. Turns out he's a lot nicer to me than most my clients :)

Life in April

It seems impossible that it is only May! I keep thinking it's June. I feel like the past two weeks have been full enough to fill at least a month an a half. I just kept telling myself as soon as we had our new renters taken care of (our last renters' contract was up at the end of last month, so we had to find new ones) I'd get some things done. So here I am. Our new renters moved in today and I'm trying to catch up on our blog :).

An exciting thing happened to us about a month ago. We got our first check from Google! For those of you not so familiar with the 'pay-per-click' advertising world, I will explain to you why this is a big deal. When I put google ads on my site (my wedding blog) I make about $.10 to $.30 every time someone clicks on them. And I don't get a check until I've made over $100. I'm sure you can imagine that it took a LONG time to get to that first $100.

So that first check was exciting, but what was even MORE exciting was to see how, as our site grew and we got more people visiting it- we were able to get to the $100 mark so much faster. Today we got our 2nd google check in the mail and we're just a few dollars away from getting our 3rd! (I love wedding season!)

I can't tell you how many times Doug and I have looked at each other and said- ".... It's working!".

We've sure had a lot of fun doing the professional blogging thing. We're hoping it keeps on working for us!