So Random

This men's size 11 brand new shoe showed up on the lawn of the junior high. Every time someone comes to the office to ask if we have the item they lost I offer up this shoe...it's funny every time.

I have really great visiting teachers who almost always bring me something when they come visit. They don't have to do that, but I really like it when they do.

On February 13th I delivered these Valentine treats for some co-workers and the book club girls. I finally gave Amie a Christmas present! And I gave a co-worker a birthday present.

This school year Whitney has a fun new group of friends (cue choir of angels) and she actually invited them over to play games (for some reason she doesn't ever want to do this). It was a smashing success!

Whitney is on the honor roll at school so while passing the cabinet with the names I snapped this photo.

This is what a typical car lunch looks like for me, it's basically my half hour of Zen in the middle of a crazy work day.

It's February, our tulips shouldn't be growing like this yet!

Ew!

We're pretty sure Junie cat is pregnant and due the end of March (we're excited). She's super loving and will often come sit on me while I'm reading or watching TV.

My mom recently picked up some food from Wendy's and came to my work so we could have a car lunch...I rarely have those with anyone anymore now that I don't have to work 5 days a week.

Junie allows all sorts of smothering.

Amie and I have been getting together every other week or so for lunch on one of my day's off.

Our weather this "winter" has been wonderful. January and February have flown by and I really think it's because it's been sunny and semi-warm instead of gray and cold like it usually is. It's amazing what a difference this makes in my soul.

Miscellany--Phone Style

It is already time for Whitney to register for her 9th grade classes (how did that happen so fast?!). She applied (along with 110 other kids) to be in the yearbook class. This involved getting two teacher recommendations, submitting 5 photos she'd taken, and filling out the application questions. (I'm happy to report she got in!)

Whitney and her friends were standing outside the office one day during lunch time so I started taking pictures of them.

Amie's daughter Jessica is a senior in high school and is also enrolled in beauty school so I scheduled an appointment to have her give me a manicure. I've known Jessica since she was 4 so it's kind of crazy that she's so grown up now.

Michelle and I met up with Collette for her birthday lunch on February 6th.

Michelle and I went to Pebbles in My Pocket after lunch and found all kinds of cute things (I am addicted to tags) and ended up buying stuff to make Valentines.

 I love coming home to find Landon doing his homework!

Saturday February 7th was so glorious that Whitney and I read outside for an hour!

 Junie basked in the sun next to us.

Randy and I went to dinner at La Costa with Adam and Amy while the girls hung out at home.

My visiting teaching companion and I did a 3 minute stint on visiting our sisters regularly during our Relief Society Visiting Teaching Conference. I had Randy make this poster for me to show how we're all connected through visiting teaching...I love it!

Sometimes you just gotta take a nap horizontally across the bed with your feet hanging off and no blankets or pillow...what the?!

Our Valentine making day was a success! Michelle made treat bags for her visiting teaching people and a bunch of cute Valentines to mail. I made treat bags for my co-workers and book club friends.

I got this funny Valentine in the mail from Natalie S. It's the only one I got.

I read in the cozy every day, this time Landon stopped in and grabbed my phone for a selfie.

We read Man's Search For Meaning last week for Bookclub and all loved it. I'm always reluctant to read non fiction and concentration camp type books because they're so rough on my soul, but this was super inspiring.

I gave this bottle of cuteness to my Secret Pal.

12 on the 12th--February Edition

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1. When Junie comes in each morning she heads over to this part of the kitchen floor and waits for us to give her some treats.
2. I enjoy getting my daily Book of Mormon reading assignment via Instagram.
3. I had a busy day at work, but was given a soft pretzel by the Foods teacher.
4. Whitney drew this on the back of her Cavetime slip.
5. A shot of my car lunch.
6. I love this quote from Man's Search For Meaning!
7. I always wear flip flops and love it that I can do so comfortably even though it's February (in Utah!).
8. I headed straight to the cozy for a nap.
9. Whitney made us this lovely dinner.
10. Landon worked 3-7:30 at JCW's.
11. Randy and I watched the finale of Project Runway Allstars.
12. More reading before falling asleep.

Miscellany

Landon started working at JCW's back in December. He works 2-3 shifts a week and gets 50% his food purchases while working. He has been hitting me up for money each shift because he hadn't gotten paid yet so it actually costs us to have him work! It's kind of funny.

My last Secret Pal was quite good to me and rocked my world by getting me 3 kinds of Sour Cream and Cheddar chips because she didn't know which kind I like best. I like them all!

A student brought these goldfish to the office to have me babysit them until after school. Apparently she'd won them in a class but couldn't walk around school with them for fear of mishap. It was a weird afternoon for me but kind of fun. The student forgot to pick them up after school so Whitney was kind enough to change their water before we went home for the day.

Sweet Junie comes in several times a day to nap or get some loves. She's pretty much the perfect cat.

Whitney got a phone for Christmas so now I get all kinds of interesting texts from her, like this one. (Sadly for her I came home empty handed.)

Amie and I have been going to lunch every other Tuesday or so and always have a good time.

She gave these cool chalkboard tags and mini boards, and a fabulous eyelash curler for Christmas during one of our lunches. I haven't even figured out what I'm giving her for Christmas yet!

Whitney made this cute thing at a YW activity recently.

This is what my car lunches on work days look like.

My current pedicure design. This color is actually a dark purple but appears black...I have done this 3 times now! Apparently I need to give up on dark purple polish.

Whitney recently took the initiative and applied at the "sticky shoe" movie theater in town. I don't know if they'll hire a 14 year old but I was super happy with her go-getterness.

Michelle gave me a gift certificate for Chatbooks for Christmas, so that covered half the cost of getting my first 12 books made. Each book has 60 Instagram posts in it, so I will always be contributing to future books as I post on Instagram. The books are very pleasing and they're such a good record of my daily life.

Book club--January 2015 Edition

We always celebrate Jenn's birthday at our January book club because her birthday is on New Year's Eve.

She requested Magelby's for dinner, but they had a 40 minute wait when I called for take-out, so her 2nd choice was 5 Guys.

Amy's family spent 2 weeks in Costa Rica over Christmas and brought us all this amazing degreaser dish cleaner that works in cold water some passion fruit candy.

Jana told us of her crazy Christmas activities.

Michelle made her wonderful vanilla cream pie (as requested by Jenn).

(I forgot my camera so these are phone photos...not good.)

We gave her $100 Visa Gift Card.

We discussed The Gifts of Imperfection and plan to continue discussing it a chapter at a time this year because it's so good.

Jenn gave each of us a notebook, chocolates, tissues, thank you notes, and a cd of dance music along with really nice reasons for each of them (relating to our long-time friendship and the book).

Flashing Back to September

Back on September 6th, me, Lori, Landon and Whitney went to see Howard Jones & Tom Bailey in concert.

We got there about 40 minutes early and then ended up sitting through multiple opening acts so we really could have shown up 3 hours late and been right on time. Ugh.

Whitney found a notebook in the back pocket of my lawn chair, what a find! She drew for a long time and had a fan club (the people behind us) watching her. This notebook probably saved her life because she was having some serious attitude problems and I was close to freaking out.

We had to wait an hour for the show to start and then sit through three other acts (who were fine) before the headliners performed...Landon had a good time taking selfies with my phone.

Tom Bailey was fantastic! He sounded so great and was super high energy. I hadn't realized how many Thompson Twins songs I knew, but they were part of my high school years' soundtrack for sure.

The song from the end credits of Sixteen Candles pretty much does me in no matter how many times I hear it.

More selfies.

Howard Jones was good too.

And more selfies.

I enjoyed the concert more than Lori or the kids because those songs are linked to many memories for me, but we all had a good night.